Aberdeen, Maryland, to New York City, June 14, 2015

★★ Rays of sun found the orange buds swelling here and there in the great green breaking wave of the trumpet vine. Little puddles lay in the flagstones outside the back door, and the share car sparkled, free of road dust. A glossy blackbird rummaged in the platform full of sunflower seeds. Up above the trees the sun was coming and going. Gray squirrels flowed long-bodied over the shady ground. Somewhere on the steamy air was the smell of a skunk, almost certainly from a skunk. The old dog acquired new briskness in her hobbling step at the prospect of a walk. Volley after volley of frogs launched themselves plopping into the water of the drainage ditch. The dog tottered on the tilting edge of the roadway and slipped onto the weedy embankment and thence, rolling, down into the mud. Fished out and set upright, she continued on her way. Further on in the roadway lay a baked flattened mosaic that had once been a box turtle. Later in the afternoon, a boom of thunder carried into the kitchen. The quality of the light had not changed much, but outside, up the hill to the north, gray clouds were gathering. A softer growl of thunder came, and then a long rippling one, sustained and sustained even longer. Every leaf was still. When the rain came it came straight down. What the storm lacked in winds it made up in gravitational violence, big drops pounding the trees and the ground. Water poured over the edge of the clogproof gutters, leaving a soaking line across the back of a shirt in the time it took to reach out and boost the dog back into the house. A brown stream was running down the back yard, between the dog fence and the edge of the garden. In the upper reaches, behind the garage, there were foaming rapids. The rain subsided into tree drip, but water poured along the roadside. A deer stood in a field in the returning sun. Out on the interstate, light bouncing off the flooded grooves of the rumble strip flickered on the ceiling of the car. The highway passed in and out of lighter showers. Traffic thinned and thickened; men in expensive cars drove angrily up the bottom of the Turnpike. Rain smeared the windshield in a jam by Newark Airport. Up out of the garage, there was enough rain to make it worth grabbing the first cab, even though the avenue was going in the wrong direction. Rain flew in the partly open taxi windows. In the apartment lobby, the long rain mats were being unrolled.