The sky had been gathering itself since morning, clouds piling without urgency, and when the farmer finally spoke he did not look dramatic or heroic, he only tilted his head upward as though talking to a neighbour across a fence and said, “Are you there at all, or have we been throwing our words into empty air,” because tired people rarely bother with poetry.
The answer did not fall immediately, and that silence almost made him laugh, until the sound arrived, slow and spreading, thunder moving like something alive, and the voice inside it said, “I have always been here, but you listen only when fear sharpens your ears, and even then you spend more time arguing about signs than understanding them,” while the clouds pressed lower as if to be closer to the conversation.
The farmer shifted his weight, dust clinging to his feet, and he replied, “Then listen to us now, because the land is cracked and our hands are empty, and when rain comes it comes like punishment, and when it does not we are blamed for surviving,” and his words kept going because once a man begins to speak honestly he rarely knows where to stop.
Somewhere behind him a door creaked.
“I want to ask something,” a child said suddenly, her voice small but steady, and the farmer turned too late to stop her as she continued, “If you are truly mighty, why do you bother talking, and why not just make us do what is right,” and the question climbed into the sky without apology.
For a long moment nothing moved, not the trees, not the birds, not even the impatient wind, and then the thunder answered, softer now but heavier, “Because force creates obedience and obedience dies the moment the pressure lifts, but speech plants responsibility, and responsibility stays,” and lightning traced the inside of the clouds without tearing them open.
The farmer felt something loosen in his chest, something he had been holding without knowing, and he said, almost to himself but loud enough, “Then do not wait until everything is already ruined before you speak,” and the child nodded as though this was obvious.
Thunder rolled once more, deep and approving, and the god replied, “I speak constantly, in soil and seasons and restraint, but you hear me clearly only when I raise my voice, and even then you call it anger,” and as if to close the matter, rain began to fall, not hard, not gentle, but steady, the kind that seeps rather than strikes, while the farmer and the child stood where they were, listening, because for the first time the storm felt less like a threat and more like an answer still unfolding.
