First Autumn Rain

The rain has begun. For hours, it has fallen in gentle sprinkles or drifted as fine mist, with an occasional quickening that amounts to a pianissimo downpour. The forest night smells woody and wet, and the damp in the air catches the lights of the town so that there is an orange glow in the southwest. Above, the bluish-gray rumples of the clouds are barely visible, like a high dome in a darkened cathedral. I expect to hear the sandhill cranes flying over. It's perfect weather for their return.

I listen to the soft stuttering of the showers, or to the drips falling from the pines in the misty intervals, and the sound is as soothing as the cool, silken air. As yet, there has not been enough rain to make the downspout gurgle or to form rivulets on the ground, but the storm may be hours in passing. There may be a gray day ahead, the sunlight muted to a pearly glow, the clear beads of water gathered on leaves and grass blades the brightest spots to be seen. One can only hope.

Cleared

The cold front passed through as I slept, and I woke to a clear and crisp afternoon. A few sodden mulberry leaves decorated the lawn, small brown birds pecked and chirped and fluttered everywhere, and the light further drenched the freshly washed pines with its accustomed October clarity. I found myslef a bit saddened by the brevity of the evening, as is my frequent response this time of year, but brief melancholy is little to pay for so splendid an evening. Autumn days are the more to be savored for being served in small portions.

The katydid in my yard remains silent tonight, but I hear two others more distant, no longer drowned out by the one who has for weeks been the ruin of night's serenity. They don't sound so bad in small numbers, and from a few hundred feet away. Tonight, their sound triggered an odd memory. Long ago, I would on occasion have reason to call a Pasadena telephone number. The sound brought to the earpiece by those telephones ringing was often different than that brought by telephones in other parts of the Los Angeles area. I used to think of it as an old sound, rather like the quavering voice of an aged person. It has only just occured to me tonight that the sound was also very much like the sound of a distant katydid. I always wondered why Pasadena's telephones had an unorthodox sound, but I never found out. Since I probably never will, I think I'll just pretend from now on that they had katydids in them instead of bells.