A beautiful hot night for baseball, a slow walk home through the velvet gloaming, a deep sleep in a cool house. Now, this morning, I have turned off the air machine and the sound of steady rain spatters the darkness. I carry up a cup of coffee to T and he murmurs hmm? . . . wordless interrogative of comfort, of cotton sheets and deep shadow and the trickle of water against windows and the low harmless grumble of distant thunder.

And now the storm moves closer, a flash of light, a clap--sudden drama, then sudden calm, rain resisting downpour, clinging to andante, though electricity thickens the air.

Once upon a time there was a summer.