The storm's center must have passed directly over us. There was rain all morning, then in the afternoon it slowed and ceased for a while, and then quickened and fell again for a few hours. The pause— the storm's eye, most likely, though it was a fogged eye that could not see the sun— lasted an hour or so, and brought with it a thin, swirling fog. During this pause the cluster of trees grew especially bright, while all around them seemed dim by comparison. They lit up the fog all the way up into the gray sky, as though the light were issuing from the trees themselves.
Later, as dusk gathered, the yellow trees faded until their color was barely discernible, though the air near them still seemed brighter than anywhere else, while the red tree's color grew deeper and more intense, dominating the scene. Its persistence was fascinating, and I watched until it was swallowed by the darkness. Those trees will soon be losing their leaves, probably before the next rain, so I believe I have observed a rare scene. I'm glad Portia insisted on going outside instead of using the sandbox, or I might have missed it.
Sunday Verse
The Promise
by Marie Howe
In the dream I had when he came back not sick
but whole, and wearing his winter coat,
he looked at me as though he couldn't speak, as if
there were a law against it, a membrane he couldn't break.
His silence was what he could not
not do, like our breathing in this world, like our living,
as we do, in time.
And I told him: I'm reading all this Buddhist stuff,
and listen, we don't die when we die. Death is an event,
a threshold we pass through. We go on and on
and into light forever.
And he looked down, and then back up at me. It was the look we'd pass
across the kitchen table when Dad was drunk again and dangerous,
the level look that wants to tell you something,
in a crowded room, something important, and can't.
