rain & imagining the desert

israel is a swath of land, some of it desert, but not here.

there are other opinions about this – what israel “is”. maybe everything that comes after the “is” in “israel is” relates another metaphor. you choose.

today, israel is receiving rain.

a metaphor? yes, if i wanted it that way. i would read it out to you, in that case, this way:

today, israel is receiving rain.

[so, what could this “metaphor” possibly mean? a thousand things, as most metaphors do. find a way to make sense of it and you are right.]

but, it so happens that the verb of being here is not intended by its author as a verb of being at all – it is just a place holder for the present tense.

so, scratch that metaphor thing. [which is to say – if you came up with some good ideas, good for you. now, let’s move on together, shall we?]

today, israel is receiving rain.

[hm. that passive voice irks you? feel a little power relationship emerging? feel a little political undertow creeping up?]

let me teeter toward a more modest proposition – [and you, who, if you know anything at all, should be as confused by now as i am – hell, you should have, like me, started out confused – shut up].

let’s get at it already.

today it is raining. it is israel & there is rain here. we hear thunder. it is raining here. there is traffic – the same traffic you’d find in virginia on a snow day – cars losing their sense of street & careening here & there. raised voices of drivers. even a tour bus overturned, a life lost, people injured.

it is hard to know what rain means to this country. [water.]

it is hard to know what rain means to this land. [water, water.]

it is hard to know what rain means to this country. [it means: water.]

it is hard to know what rain means in this country. after months of dry heat, where does the water go? at first penetrating everything, disappearing completely into the spacious layering of loose, dry earth. then becoming itself a layer upon a layer, sliding above the dirt, rolling down embankments, having fleeting thoughts of the wadis further south, the oasis it might reach if only it could find the elevator down, down to the fury of water that glides beneath a thousand million tons of sand.