The Afternoon I Watched the Rain

The Afternoon I Watched the Rain
The rain came in around two in the afternoon
and gave me something I don’t ask for: permission.
I set the to-do on the counter and the room
held nothing but the window and the grey precision
of the rain falling straight on the cars below,
the gutters running silver, and a stranger
walking fast with both hands in his coat. I know
this exact afternoon by its quiet danger.

A woman stopped beneath the overhang across the way,
checked her phone, looked up, checked again—the grey
indecision of the caught-in-rain. Then
she walked into it, quick, committed, and when
she disappeared around the corner I felt something
close to joy—the small specific thing
of the watched moment, unrepeatable, complete.
I sat there still. The rain. The afternoon: retreat.

I don’t do this often enough—the undirected eye,
the window and the rain and permission to just lie
in the watching without purpose or account.
I’m always somewhere scheduled—the amount
of watching I’ve deferred is considerable.
But today the rain came and the comfortable
grey of it invited and I stayed.
The afternoon I watched the rain: unpaid.