Autumn Rain

written Oct. 21, 2013, following almost two weeks of rain, which has left everything wet, and drear... and wonderful...

If it rains tomorrow

I will sort through paperwork

Clean up the office

Or the back room

Or the tack room

Or just the broom closet.

I will find five more ways to cook mushrooms

Those huge ones that just keep growing in this weather

I will cook with wine. Some of which I’ll put in the food.

I will make an enormous pot of soup

And sit with the dog on the couch to eat it

While watching Downton Abbey re-runs

I will speculate on the new season, without Matthew as the heir

I will share  crackers and cheese with my dog while watching Duck Dynasty, and admit to it.

I will put the raincoat on that dog, take the umbrella and we will walk by the lake

To find the muskrats, just the two of us.

I will rough out the Christmas newsletter, a month too early

Or sort through a closet and get rid of at least 55 shirts

I will stand in the porch, my fingers tangled in the dog’s wool

And grieve for my friend’s lost dog, that torn-away shadow of herself

I will remember my own lost dogs, and cats, with sweet sorrow

I will say a prayer for my friend in surgery in Toronto, but I won’t call

She won’t be home anyway.

I will curl by the fire with the cat in my lap and watch the rain slide down the window

While drinking hot tea. Me, that would be, not the rain. Rain rarely drinks tea, hot or cold.

I will read Pride and Prejudice. Or George R.R. Martin. Or both.

I will not be able to tell the difference.

I will dream of the summer just past, and the winter still to come

Of sunshine and snow and sunshine again.

I will watch the deer in the rain stretch tall on ridiculously thin legs

To steal the apples from the tree in my yard

If it rains tomorrow, I will do all of these things. Or none of them

Because rain in late October brings this great gift with it.