The fierce lightning is scratching the sky with its nails.

When the clouds rumble and it thunders, I love to be afraid in my
heart and cling to you.

When the heavy rain patters for hours on the bamboo leaves, and
our windows shake and rattle at the gusts of wind, I like to sit
alone in the room, mother, with you, and hear you talk about the
desert of Tepântar in the fairy tale.

Where is it, mother, on the shore of what sea, at the foot of
what hills, in the kingdom of what king?

There are no hedges there to mark the fields, no footpath across
it by which the villagers reach their village in the evening, or
the woman who gathers dry sticks in the forest can bring her load
to the market. With patches of yellow grass in the sand and only
one tree where the pair of wise old birds have their nest, lies
the desert of Tepântar.

I can imagine how, on just such a cloudy day, the young son of
the king is riding alone on a grey horse through the desert, in
search of the princess who lies imprisoned in the giant's palace
across that unknown water.

When the haze of the rain comes down in the distant sky, and
lightning starts up like a sudden fit of pain, does he remember
his unhappy mother, abandoned by the king, sweeping the cow-stall
and wiping her eyes, while he rides through the desert of
Tepântar in the fairy tale?