Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sellp-song on our roof at night--
And I love the rain.
- Langston Hughes, April Rain Song

April. Rain. Window open and warmth sifting in. Raincoats on, we go out, me and Charlie and the Special One. It’s pouring. We don’t mind very much. Well, perhaps Charlie does. We are crossing a brown meadow and I see, just barely, just by chance, a face staring at us from the edge of the meadow in front of the line of trees and brush. The outline is a face, a body, something alive. We are of intense interest. I point it out. Deer. I say. It takes a moment or two form him to spot it. Deer, I say. Deer he says. Except it’s not one deer watching us. It’s two. No, three. They are frozen still and staring. I lift him up, and we creep across the brown grass, closer, closer. Still, no movement on their part, as the rain falls on all of us this April morning. Hello. We are saying hello. Soon enough, Charlie sees what we see, and then, of course, there is scatter, but this is a great part too, the scattering and bouncing off of the white tails. A vanishing. Leaving the meadow to continue the walk is now a great challenge, as the deer are wanted back. Clouds drift and part, the sun comes out. I take our jackets off. The clouds come back, we get wet, head back. It’s a slow way back. We are not fast, like the deer, this morning. Home, and the sun comes back out. It’s that kind of day. I’m glad it’s April. Tonight, my daughters, both of them, and I to the mall. To the mall! How homebound we have been these two years, shopping has been mostly online. But we are on an errand, and it’s fun to be out. And we get lucky. The suit my daughter is looking for is there in her size, and the shoes as well. Oh, the history of shopping with daughters. How wonderful that it evolves to this: everyone having a good time. Crossing the parking lot, the stars are out.