Hard Rain

Two or three in the morning it started raining hard and I had to pull up out of deep sleep to close some windows. Brought in two buckets of rainwater and put out another, the new one, still smelling strongly of pickles. I love breaking in a new water bucket because for a couple of weeks I'll smell so dill. It's truly amazing how that smell lingers. Parts per million. I make some ice-cubes I can smash up for a dirty martini. Finally I get up and make an omelet, cheese, avocado, and tomato; several pieces of toast, a big mug of tea, reading Marjorie Rawlings, South Moon Under, her first novel, 1933. A great read, southern gothic. Lant(ry) and Piety. Letting the language speak. I think she also had a novel called Dark Bridwell but I've never found a copy. Goddamn phone is out again. I shouldn't complain, it did work for 24 hours. Rained most of the day and my wash water supply is topped up. The leaves are clean and the poplars starting to yellow. Generally, the black walnuts are the last to leaf-out and the first to change color. Some very fine Boletus mushrooms, young and firm, steak-like. I fried a batch in butter and had them on toast. Earthy and excellent. After five the clouds start breaking apart and the forest is shafted in light. It's so beautiful that I nearly fall over when I go out to pee. It's that time of year when acorns start falling, when one hits the woodshed roof it's like a gunshot. It's so quiet, reading by an open window, I often hear them falling through the canopy and thumping to the ground. I do usually hear the school bus, laboring over Low Gap, 3:40 on school day afternoons. I never hear it in the morning, when sound weighs heavy and collects in the bottom. I feel benighted to be above the fray. Other advantages are that you can run about naked and cover yourself with clay. I took a vow of silence, but I can tell you that very little of what you read is actually history. Almost everything happens under the table. Or that history is just another fiction, constructed after the fact. Reconstructed. Everyone lies. Advertising is our bane. I listened to a spot on West Virginia NPR. I get Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia Public Radio, that seemed to be arguing that coal fired power plants were fine, as long as they employed people. The senior Senator added pork onto pork, I can't believe it, the way duration becomes the standard of excellence. "I've served the great state of West Virginia for 32 years..." and this is all about burning a very dirty product. I retire with my umbrellas intact.