The sound of autumn

-- summer nights' home

This is a rare evening of thunderstorm in Paris. I imagine the lightening breaking the sky, the thunder threatening the birds, the rain sweeping the unsheltered passersby.

I looked out from my window, suddenly I understood where the Gods of rain, of sky, of peace, of safety, of happiness... came from. I was once myself the primitive man of the stone age, I was myself looking at the rain, feeling the destructive force that comes closing in from the darkness, terrified! And I prayed, prayed from the deepest seed of my ignorance, prayed for the most gracious protection, prayed with the greatest fear and faith in my heart...

We are the primitive men in the creation of our little safe world... our little safe world. A world filled with the Gods of power, of money, of position, of success, of lust ... our sanctuary!

And yet the thunderstorm comes again and again. The thunder resonates in everywhere the weak soul took refuge, the lightening illuminates every hidden fear in our unsettled dreams, the rain penetrates in every empty space of our lonely hearts, the wind evacuates every souls from their castles in the air...

This evening, the thunderstorm called us out from our little sanctuary. I walked out from my window, I stepped on a soft grey cloud, I fled to the sky. "Don't look back!", the God of Thunderstorm said to me, "Don't look back"! I was frightened, the grey cloud under my feet. I turned back, I looked down, I saw my face framed within the square window pane, I saw myself struggling in this little safe world, my little predicament called "sanctuary"!

So, this evening, I looked back. I remembered my many hundred nights of thunderstorm in the summer, I remembered my little humid city of summer typhoons and thunderstorms. I remembered the familiar sound of thunder, the sound reheard tonight in Paris.

Oh, my thunder, you tremble my heart! I am no longer afraid of you but I am missing you!