Sabbath

Flecks of rain baptize the pavement, the promise if not the act of washing away its stains. Crows leave their high roosts in ritual alarm. Clouds crawl by above it all, aloof and lost in their wounded thoughts. The street lights flicker, as if they were waiting for someone to come along and just finally tell them what to do. The parking lot at the Lutheran church is bothered and busy, its congregations not sure what to make of this winsome rain. I drag along, compressing morning routines, one dog in check, the other in tow.

The birds stir just before the coming bath. The ubiquitous and irresistible crows of course, and the sparrows slipping through the gaps between leaves, and the scrub jays hectoring somebody's anxious cat, and the egrets fickly picking out a place to dine, and the ducks in need of hobby to still their tongues, and even a woodpecker working away at some phone pole grubs. All the flocks and their tribes, above and beyond us, as we make our small circles and leave our trails of craft and ruin.

The recipe for rain becomes the weight of the clouds versus the ease of the air. The rainfall is the exalting of anticipation up close, the water-color streaking of the hills in the distance. The small explosive dog does a little dodging dance each time she feels a droplet; the large shambling one could sleep beneath the advances of any seedy deluge. The walk ends, with no-one much satisfied. The lilies of the field and the birds in the rushes, the rain on the roof. Coffee quaffed with an eye on the clock, my labors always seeming to beckon loudest while others keep their sabbath.