All night long the rain poured down onto the gardens and roofs and streets, and I woke and slept, woke and slept to its hiss and clatter. This morning everything smells of wet. The trees are dripping with water, the soil is sponged with water, the stones glint with water. 

T got home last night, cheerful and chattery, loaded down with a suitcase of Mexican hot sauces and a phone full of silly cat photos. I think he and J had a really good time together, ripping out bathroom walls, tearing down paneling, getting sweaty and filthy and cogitating about floor plans.

But he's glad to be home, and I am glad to have him home, and now we are sliding back into our usual ways. Suddenly the laundry basket is full again, suddenly the coffee pot is empty again, suddenly I am thinking about bread for his work sandwiches and do we have enough mustard and I need to remember to write such and such on the list and what's that weird smell . . . and so go the daily frets of the housekeeper. 

For a few days, though, I was a full-time poet. And I got a lot done. I got so much done. And now I hold my poem in my hands and it is alive and glowing.