When the rain comes, the police cars always skulk around town because they know trouble is coming.
Especially in the early summer when it rains without pretense
In the after noon when the sky is still clear
And a rainbow is expected.
There is a certain tangible energy in the air as the water comes down in unperturbed lines from God to Earth and momentarily wets the tongue of Paulding, Ohio for no other reason than it is marvelous.
For a moment, puddles form in now glossy streets and the world sags with glory and peace.
I always fetch my navy blue umbrella and walk around slowly like Audrey Hepburn
And pretend to have nothing else to do.
Because it's summer now and it's true.
But the authorities already know what's afoot.
They cruise the streets with shark eyes and let the water wash they're vehicles.
When it first comes, what is it?
Is it the rustling of trees?
Is it a sign of the apocalypse?
A heard of angry locusts?
No, I see, as I look out the window. The rain is coming, it is a whisper from heaven. A sigh of choral Angels who saw the need for beauty on the ground.
The rain comes at random in the late spring and early summer,
that intermediate time of wonderment and rapture.
When the rain comes in straight lines to earth, tangent to the arc of my soul.