Kipilefti

It’s 3 PM, a time that would normally find the mountains illuminated with glowing afternoon sun, the brightest part of the day. It looks like twilight. A huge clap of thunder shuts off the lights.

The rains are running a little late this year.

Down in the valley I can see the silver wall of rain, completely hiding the mountains beyond. I can also see what look like vertical pinstripes of cloud, stretching from the high clouds overhead down to the low-lying clouds just above the ground. I wrap a blanket around my shoulders and walk out to the porch, sure that the stripes are just a side-effect of looking out my dirty window. They’re not.

From the porch I can see a dozen crows freewheeling above the tall pine near my house. They’re swimming in three dimensions, unconstrained by their bodies’ buoyancy or weight. They seem unwilling to land, deriving too much joy from the pre-storm drafts, the winds that make them weightless.

The haze of rain moves closer; the birds eventually take shelter in the tree. I go inside as the first drops begin to pound on the roof. Soon after, it begins to rain in earnest.