Rain At Last

Day 317: It is raining in earnest now after a few drops last night which failed to register a single hundredth in the pluviometer and a piddling drizzle earlier this morning, raining with the gusto of Ma Nature turned washerwoman, discontent with smoke-soiled air. It's not pouring, but neither is it a mere sprinkle; it knits liquid beads into the leafy lacery of the garden, dangles them from bough and branch, swags of silver along each thread of fence wire and electric line. The pavement shines, the gravel of the driveway turns dark with damp, and the scent of summer's dotage calls back memories of sidewalks past, their dust dying beneath a wash of wet. It is a sign of the season's turning, the beginning curve of a spiral which will grow increasingly narrow, carrying us into a swirl of autumn and winter. The days of smoke and haze and heat are coming apart at the seams, and although in ways I lament the briefness of good hiking weather, this dried-out Pacific Northwesterner is still inclined to shout, "Hurrah! It's raining at last!"