After the Storm

I watched the rain all day. Gray curtaining a gray sky, behind young leaves and slender, writhing limbs. Leaves brought to peridot brilliance, stamped against the dull dim white of a million falling drops. When it ended, I couldn't stay in, flushed out into the clearing air under a sky still heavy and damp.

The smell of woodsmoke filled the air, it seemed to drift up from the coppery pine needles that laced the path. A swirling breeze brought water smells from the muddy surge of the swollen bayou, and, passing drooping, dripping sunflowers, glaring golden against the thick brown billows, a hint of summer honey sweetened the air. Fitful gusts flung the cold sharp spray of a few last drops. And glimmering on the soft green ground, caught along each blade like beads of sliver, raindrops lingered, perched trembling on the shivering strands, as if the soft gray sky itself had settled, sifting through grass fingers.

Caught and held captive by each small crystal, I slowed and stopped and wanted nothing more than to be some small animal so I could bend and drink my fill. A bird, maybe, flitting down from my sodden branch with a beak like smooth glass, dipping up a shimmering sip and with back-tilted head, take in the rain. Or a mouse with deft and delicate paws pulling a blade to sniff this bit of fallen sky with whiskers wet, and then with tiny tongue, explore the shining, cool and cleansing wetness down the center.

I wanted to be something small, to look around and find myself amid a field of silver treasure. I knelt and touched my finger to one drop, poised atop one small, arching blade. The globe of dampness bulged unbroken, until I drew my hand away, then split in two, I held a tiny round of cloudy sky, then brought my finger to my lips, and tasted the rare, pure sweetness of new fallen rain.