lone blue cloud trailing

lone blue cloud trailing

a curtain of rain over

a strip of cornfields

An isolated rain cloud moving east leaves a stripe of dark wet on the blacktop, indicating the width of its path. On either side, the pavement remains dry gray, the corn shocks faded green. It's mid-August, the height of summer in the Midwest, but leaves are turning yellow and beginning to drift down in the slightest breeze. I have been shaking my Peruvian rainstick at the passing clouds, but the clouds are not responding to my plea. Still, it is soothing to upend the stick and listen to the pebbles trickle down the long, hollow tube. As they hit the cactus thorns, which have been driven through the dry cactus to the hollow interior, they make a sound like rain falling. Although the sound does not fill the cracks in the ground or slake thirsty roots, still it falls on my hope and keeps it growing.