Wetter

The rain has intensified tonight, its ceaseless splattering a mantra repeated by the sibilant pools and muttering roof. There is wind from time to time, as well, and it shakes the pines which then create secondary showers that drum around them as they shed their gathered water. I forgot to mention last night that I heard the first frogs of the year, croaking in the arroyo where the stream lies. If they are croaking tonight, their voices are drowned by the nearby clatter of this rain. As I went out a while ago, the early-rising neighbors up the street turned on their porch light and the night suddenly glittered with raindrops and wet pavement, the gutter stream flashing reflections. But the first thing I saw was a stretch of wet utility lines shining, and I was suddenly reminded of rainy nights when I saw the streetlights of downtown Los Angeles reflected in the trolly wires and in the silver tracks running below them. The brief vision was so vivid that I imagined I heard the clanging bell of a streetcar and the crackling of the wire, and smelled the ozone as the trolly sparked through a junction. How many years has it been since I actually beheld that scene? A long time, to be sure, and how strange it is that a bit of light caught on a wet telephone line could bring it back as though it had happened a moment ago.

Inevitably, Parody Arises

$

$

$

$

$

$

Marriage is a tax deduction.

And who am I to deny comedy its due?

Rainy Again

Uncommonly warm for the middle of February, this storm has brought a thorough drenching to the forest without driving the birds into hiding. Several of them were flitting about my yard this afternoon, even splashing in the puddles now and then. The acorn woodpeckers took up their usual rainy day positions on the dryer side of the telephone pole, though, where they chuckled and squawked for an hour or so before moving on. Windswept rain patterned the street with dashing ephemeral lines, and the camellias dripped liked flushed, sweaty lovers. Overflowing gutters sent streams to erode the ground and build small deltas of sand on the driveways. All the while, the wind rushed and boomed, and the pines shook like great dogs flinging water from their coats. Indeed, so active was the day that I came indoors and put on the headphones and listened to calming music as I watched the wind-flung raindrops run slowly down my windowpane.