It poured--just poured--as I drove to Round Rock this morning. Water sloshing down embankments. Pooling in low spots on the highway. A gullywasher.

I drove past fields of brown grass and leafless trees. Just getting plastered down--not revived--by the rain. A cemetary's grass had turned a true yellow. I hadn’t realized just how dry it has been.

With the water finally pouring down, the grass and trees didn’t seem to quite get it--they have been so long deprived. They were coming out of a daze, opening one eye into the waterfall, saying listlessly, maybe even irritably, what is this? Just leave me alone. Then opening the other eye--Is this for me? Is all of this for me?

There is no thought of spring, not yet. No thought of anything. Just the physical response to water. Relief. Wonder.

By noon the sky was clearing; by sunset, the air was fresh and moist, the sky pink and sensual as a Gauguin painting.