220827 it rained

 Aug. 27

The world disappears and the sci-fi reader in me imagines it is true that it is gone. One could almost believe it. The sense of being all alone seems to touch a deep place in our minds. We slip into that Alice space where the laws of logic and reason abandon us and we are a small child (believing in fairy tales) and the possibilities of magic are open to us. We stand suspended between terror and intrigue, and reach for a parent's hand. 

*****

I continue to be interested in the red-backed salamander. My record is fourteen in one walk. I wonder how many fallen branches and rocks I look under? Maybe ten or twelve without for each one found. But I have developed an eye for the right sort of log and environment. 

This is why they look like they do: to resemble the detritus they live amongst. 

And a little yellow spotted salamander! For these, one looks under rocks and logs in a slightly different environment, at the edge of the meadow, on the ridge. Rain finds them in the garden when she is weeding.

*****

We have had an excellent fall of rain, although it has worsened an already rained-out driveway!

Almost 80 millimetres in 24 hours.

About 30 millimetres in 15 minutes poured a torrent down the drive.

*****

We walk in an ocean of air.  Someone I knew long ago might have said this. I don't remember, but when I thought it, they came to mind. Instead of gills, we have lungs to extract oxygen. Creatures of this sea are all about us. We walk among the seaweed and bones at the bottom of the ocean. 

*****

the scrolls of the dead are long ago 

cast upon the ground 

unread and gone to earth

Mumma Yaga