It rained most of yesterday, most of last night, and now it is still raining, rain puddled on stairs and sidewalks, giant maples dense with rain, it runs from leaf cups onto roofs, into gutters, gardens sodden with rain, kale bowing to the ground, sunflower blooms swaying like enormous wet pocket watches, in the early morning dark, under the first crow calls, and on the avenue a bus hissing by--

I am wearing socks and a bathrobe as if winter has arrived, I am drinking coffee and listening to rain patter at the windowpanes, I am watching the rain-wet cat blink on a kitchen chair, the rain surrounds the house, a small rain, tapping like moths on a screen door--

Last night I woke and slept and woke and slept to rain, shingle-sluice and leaf-shimmer, sound as sight as dream, always the slow rattle of water, a mineral scent, stone and soil, and the cottage warmth of my own clean bed--