By Pattiann Rogers
This is about no rain in particular,
just any rain, rain sounding on the roof,
any roof, slate or wood, tin or clay
or thatch, any rain among any trees,
rain in soft, soundless accumulation,
gathering rather than falling on the fir
of juniper and cedar, on a lace-community
of cobwebs, rain clicking off the rigid
leaves of oaks or magnolias, any kind
of rain, cold and smelling of ice or rising
again as steam off hot pavements
or stilling dust on country roads in August.
This is about rain as rain possessing
only the attributes of any rain in general.
And this is about night, any night
coming in its same immeasurably gradual
way, fulfilling expectations in its old
manner, creating heavens for lovers
and thieves, taking into itself the scarlet
of the scarlet sumac, the blue of the blue
vervain, no specific night, not a night
of birth or death, not the night forever
beyond the frightening side of the moon,
not the night always meeting itself
at the bottom of the sea, any sea, warm
and tropical or starless and stormy, night
meeting night beneath Arctic ice.
This attends to all nights but no night.
And this is about wind by itself,
not winter wind in particular lifting
the lightest snow off the mountaintop
into the thinnest air, not wind through
city streets, pushing people sideways,
rolling ash cans banging down the block,
not a prairie wind holding hawks suspended
mid-sky, not wind as straining sails
or as curtains on a spring evening, casually
in and back over the bed, not wind
as brother or wind as bully, not a lowing
wind, not a high howling wind. This is
about wind solely as pure wind in itself,
without moment, without witness.
Therefore this night tonight--
a midnight of late autumn winds shaking
the poplars and aspens by the fence, slamming
doors, rattling the porch swing, whipping
thundering black rains in gusts across
the hillsides, in batteries against the windows
as we lie together listening in the dark, our own
particular fingers touching--can never
be a subject of this specific conversation
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I spent an insane number of hours Wednesday on the phone with two banks, Equifax, Experian, the county police (with whom both Equifax and Chase suggested I file a report), and various places where I had orders placed that probably won't go through because I had to cancel credit cards. I couldn't leave the house until FedEx arrived with the credit card that started all this (which I can never use, since I wasn't the one who requested it and just wanted to make sure it didn't fall into the hands of whoever did), so I was stuck until late afternoon, at which point it was raining but I went to the park for twenty minutes anyway.
Paul took me to Cava for dinner after a trip to the grocery store (he ate the last English muffin in the house for breakfast and took the last bagel in the house with him for lunch when we were out of bread and I couldn't go out to get either, so he knew he owed me). Then Cheryl and I decided to wait on the Fantastic Four movies since we're too Infinity War-focused this week so we watched The Avengers -- the first one. Tomorrow we may watch Thor: Ragnarok or we may decide to save that in case we need it to put us in a better mood on the other side of the new movie! Tulips from Meadowlark Gardens last weekend:
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