“A million little silver feet are dancing delicately to the music of the wind three yards above my head. At every moment their rhythms and their figures change, their tempo changes from slow to swift, from allegro to a stately-stepping andante. The room is resonant with their tiny tramplings. It reverberates like a great hollow drum under numberless muffled drumsticks.

“A minute ago the raindrops now musical above me were riding high over hill and forest, playfellows of the wind. What journeys they have made in coming here, and how long they have been on the way! -- sinking down to the rocky bases of the planet, lying still there in the dark for weeks or months or years, bubbling forth again to the light in springs of the mountain and of old worn pastures, washing the roots of grass and trees, climbing to the stem of a brier rose to issue in the breath of a blossom, shining in the dawn as dew, sparkling in brooks and darkling in rivers, tossing on the sea, drawn up into clouds and blown over deserts and farms and cities -- and then falling at last with a dance and song to cheer a solitary man. Every drop that I hear, though young as the morning, is also very old.

“I think how the summer shower will bring refreshment to this gray pasture and to that ferny lane, to the thirsting columbines on their rocky knoll and to the browning meadows by the stream. I imagine the swift patter of drops on the leaves of the maple or dimpling the surface of the lake. I see how they will glisten in the feathered grass and deep in the hearts of roses when the sun shines again. Thus the rain that shuts me in may really set me free. Fancy spreads her wings when she hears this music.”

-- from “Rain on the Roof” an essay by the American writer Odell Shepard from his 1935 book "The Cabin Down the Glen"

To hear a new recording of my piece “Rainy Day” played by flutist Betty Douglas, oboist Yo Shionoya and pianist Beth Troendly, click on the link above. There's also a link to a PDF of the score.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Nov. 1, 2026

www.sowash.com