Rain and wind, and wind and rain.
Will the Summer come again?
Rain on houses, on the street,
Wetting all the people's feet,
Though they run with might and main.
Rain and wind, and wind and rain. . .

Excerpt from “Winter Song,” Katherine Mansfield

I walk into the delicious warmth of the rain splatter. It’s slushing the snow. A fresh drenching of the white landscape. The river is icing and thawing, all in between and sloshing. I take my time, sliding around the frozen edged places, looking at pictures in the otherworldly mist of this morning. Eyes drawn to flashes of color: here, in the frozen brook, I slide out a bit and find, circling a rotten tree, bright flakes of bark. Strange, how happy this rain is making me feel. I have left my skis and snowshoes, I am booting it, and feel it makes me free to bend and stare and turn and view all angles of things with ease. Just me and Charlie, he’s happy too. Suzi’s joints are achey, so she’s stayed indoors. Indoors. I make a fire, dry Charlie with a towel. All day I work on various things and decide not to drive into the city for my poetry workshop but attend online. Relief. I’d much rather walk in this rainy mist than drive in it after dark. I share the revision of my Montreal poem. Calmly, determinedly, I take away notes for making it more. It can be more. Less and more. Must be both. Then, I have the pleasure, after workshop, of giving my daughter’s grad school paper a final read, about drama therapy and transformation. A day’s work done. And, outside the rain pounds away at the snow and ice, a fine rhythm for sleeping soundly.