“qualia” (n.): the internal, private, subjective component of sense perceptions, referring to the “what-something-is-like” aspects of conscious experience

a tintinnabulation of rain
on the tin roof

or—

I was underwater in the warm sheets, the
quivering crackling of rain above me like
last night’s fire, resin sizzling off the fat
pine, and was someone playing a piano?

here it is, I promise:

a december drizzle awakened me
gently, like a mother’s touch, from
childhood dreams into an envelope of
electric blanket warmth, and through
silvery rivulets on the bedside window’s
thick glass I glimpsed an early covey of
quail muttering, disappearing, into the
misty mississippi morning wrapping
greyly around spindly skeleton trees
above deep jade gardens, the brick
courtyard a dried blood red, and the
world was singing an ode, or a lament,
or both—

so, then,

a tintinnabulation of rain
on the tin roof.

– Ben Groner III