Dark skies, distant thunder, blowy trees, dry sidewalks. Then...ropes of water drop onto the streets and the asphalt becomes a river. Rain slams into leaves. I go to the porch to watch the show.
The clouds pull apart. The
light that falls is gray-gold, same as the sky-color. But in a few moments, another
pounding of rain. This time, the sun also pours through the small rents; a bright forest
of rain appears—a grove of beaded curtains, hollow stalks of bamboo chimes. I run out to look for a rainbow—find a faint one tangled in the phone wires and chimneys, a low arc going from nowhere to
nowhere. I take pictures of the lake that has formed in the yard: ripples carved
by hard drops, shaky reflections of sky-trees-buildings, an indistinct rim of
old junk. A layerer’s paradise.
In the sky now a gigantic white cloud retreats to the east; the
bluest emptiness fills in the space it leaves, another generous pouring. Each is the purest tone, as though both cloud and sky were made of sound.
It rains again. I video the silver rivulets that run down
the dark gray trunk of the copper beech, the mercury slipping from its
branches. Finally, evening lowers itself over all the glimmering dampness.
These storms come and go without meaning or intent; here is just
occurrence, and its by-product, beauty. I think about griefs that return, love that
wants to be spilled, something unfinishable that needs to be stated over and over.
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