what rain does

more effective than any topcoat

When I was still asleep I could hear the rain creeping into the morning. It began as a whirring that I mistook for circulating refrigeration fluid. The sound disturbed Sierra, too; I saw her sit up in bed. Then the whirring swelled into a watery cascade -- no intermediate pattering, just a sudden arrival.

As I walked down the glassy path to the library sans iPhone camera, I fumbled for images fit to describe the transformation. Rain deepens all colors just as seawater polishes pebbles: those round coins, temporarily coated in gleaming cobalt, gathering ruches on the shore. How disappointed I am an hour later to find the glistening token in my pocket replaced by a dull, gray lump, as pointless as a paver, powdery to the touch. Today the rain lavishes on the great granite quarry that is Vermont the same emollient, one that intensifies every gray and washes every white; creating contrast, phrasing, dynamics. Light reflects off of wet walls instead of warming them. And tomorrow returns the dry, dusty neutrals of sun-baked brick.

But the soft leaves on feathered trees absorb the rain and glow ever brighter their golds and russets and greens, their apple-tones, until they are so waterlogged that they drop to the mud.