The rain left random splatters on my bedroom window like water colors on a thick canvas;
7:45, a humid Monday in the summer
Mother Nature with her paint brush,
she pulled back and released the bristles
to leave a spotty dripping splash of rather abstract art all over
every boring building in this tired city.
I considered it a small treat to be peering through the spontaneous drops,
as they distorted the mundane view of my front yard.
With a slight intrusion of my leftover child's imagination,
it appeared as though the pavement that slept beneath this old town house
was melting & all of the houses in this neighborhood were floating with the clouds,
silently through this aquatic universe... had I opened the window,
I thought, "it'd be sink or swim" so I thanked the green of Earth
that I was safe & dry at the edge of my bed.
As a kid the most painful of hours were eased
with a fictional story that made my situation seem safer than all of
its alternatives, although that was rarely the case...
My grandfather would stand in my door way & whispering through the chaos
of just an other tragedy, he'd say "If you can't find anything to be grateful for, pretend."
Well I know most of the time I was grateful enough just for him.