February 6, 2013

Dark and dreary when I got up this morning and nothing much has changed, except we have both fog AND rain!  Sheesh!  You'd thing one or the other was more than enough for one morning.  The fog is fading but still hanging round some fields and near the water.  My red maple is living up to its name, thousands of little red flower line the branches, making a bright spot in the gloom.  I noticed one of the ash trees along the road is making new leaves, little tufts of vibrant chartreuse, like clusters of  closed umbrellas, that I am sure will open in a day or two.  Most of the trees still look like winter, bare branches and soggy trunks, but I think an early spring is definitely in the offing.  The cane thinks it spring already, there must be at least 50 new shoots, gleaming white stalks spearing their way up through dead leaves and the winter grass. 

The rain is only an occasional spatter now . . . but still it makes me want a poem about rain . . . 

Morning Rain 

A slight rain comes, bathed in dawn light.
I hear it among treetop leaves before mist
Arrives. Soon it sprinkles the soil and,
Windblown, follows clouds away. Deepened

Colors grace thatch homes for a moment.
Flocks and herds of things wild glisten
Faintly. Then the scent of musk opens across
Half a mountain -- and lingers on past noon. 

Tu Fu 

It's a slight rain, but only bathed in darkness this morning, and still sprinkling.  It seems to be growing a little lighter, perhaps just a break before more rain.   Here there is nowhere near the musk of rain that there is in the desert, the smell of rain before it gets to you there is enough to take your breath away as everything of dust and pollen, blooms and rocks, gives up its scent in one grand sigh in anticipation of getting wet.  The air is dense with desert, and even after the rain finishes washing everything, there is still that heady perfume lingering until the sun finally drives it away.  The air here can sometimes approach that level of headiness but only after there has been no rain for too many days, in drought, or edging into it. 

The gloom without storm makes me sleepy, the light like dawn or twilight all day, and both those times the body wants rest and perhaps a little more sleep or a nap.  So much gray and drizzle makes me want to curl up and hibernate!