North Randolph in the Rain

I look out onto the rainy street beyond the porch railing.  It is silent.  The Saturday morning ballet of nattering neighbors and carousing kids is delayed by the soft rain pattering to the pavement.  The air is a wet wool blanket clinging to my shoulders.  I sit, shift restlessly, fight the impulse to tread barefoot in the morning drizzle.

 I watch Doug step out his door, quiet as a cat burglar.  He reaches out, palm up, feeling for the exact cadence of the raindrops.  He frowns, mustache drooping like a dejected blonde caterpillar.  There will be no golf this morning.  He tiptoes back in.

The windchime is tangled.  I lean cautiously over the railing, stretching to unsnarl the delicate strands.  Meanwhile, giant drops of water divebomb from the gutter’s edge and plunk me on the head.  I persist, and soon the chime peals gratefully at me, a lullabye sound. 

The motion has made ancient injuries smart.  Both heels are sore, and my hamstring is cranky.  Humidity seeps into crevices and corners of my muscles like a spelunker. I smile, remembering the double plays and the Brooklyn-Queens championships that left me the legacy of a complaining physique.  The weather won’t let me forget.   

Water is running in rivers beside the curb.  It flows around clumps of cottonwood pods with artistic agility, feigning left, going right, and finally continuing its descent to the storm drains at the foot of Hooker Avenue.  The motion moves the air.  The sweet locust scent and the chalky essence of asphalt ride the breeze. 

I consider the swamp maples, the stalwart old ladies of the hill.  Sturdy and mossy, they soar over the houses reaching toward the sky.  Their branches lay open, welcoming the gentle shower from above. 

Birds flit from branch to branch, too busy to notice the rain.  They study the mulberries, like rabbinical students poring over Talmud. They converse in another tongue, chattering insistently, but still I understand. 

I am a foreigner among the native life.  Nature maintains its rhythms when I cannot manage mine.  I wrestle with doubts that descend on my life like sudden downpours.  I question and fret and wonder and despair as if tomorrow will never come. 

            The leaves don’t know how much growing they should do until the rain tells them.   I sit back, and listen harder.