Gray

[rejectomorph]

These obstinate clouds refuse to either disperse or produce a proper rain. They hang unmoving, like those perpetual clouds which have endured a century or more in Pissarro's cityscapes. Here is no Paris, though, but only the weedy fields and shadowy woods, and the small houses ranked along asphalt streets that would be as gray as the sky, were it not for the strew of colorful leaves and golden brown pine needles which now carpets them. Above the houses and their smoking chimneys, a crow flies between two pines. It perches for a moment at the tip of one, emits a few loud caws, then flies back to land at the top of the other, a hundred yards distant. The performance is repeated several times. Perhaps the crow, too, wishes to summon rain from the bleak sky. It fails. Day fades, without a proper sunset. Moonless night is roofed with black slate.