If you don’t have a sturdy umbrella your hair is wet-dark, cloak sodden heavy by rains in the forms of mists that become drizzles, downpours that mature to gully washers. It never stops here. There are legends, passed from mothers to daughters at cauldrons and dressing tables, of an impossible country where laundry is dried outside, absorbing different freshnesses depending on the current season. Fathers warn their sons against loving the woman who leaves no ripples when they walk her home from the dance at night. There are as many words for rain as there are changes in intensity and direction, as many tales as generations, but no verbs for the act itself. Saying it’s raining is invoking the obvious and eternal, like saying your heart beats inside mine.