Missing Rain Quotes

There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow and endless drizzle. You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken. Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again. Whenever it rains you will think of her.

But I miss screamin' and fightin' and kissin' in the rain and it's 2 a.m. and I'm cursin' your name. You're so in love the you act insane, and that's the way I loved you.

Time Does Not Bring Relief Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear To go,—so with his memory they brim. And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, “There is no memory of him here!” And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

sometimes i don't know, which moment which cool gust of wind will come, and enchant me tousling my hair and my heart, stirring...that familiar ache of poetry, which drop will kiss the old wrench in my soul reminding me, all over again i miss you better in the rain.

I like storms. Thunder torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.

All things pass in time. We are far less significant than we imagine ourselves to be. All that we are, all that we have wrought, is but a shadow, no matter how durable it may seem. One day, when the last man has breathed his last breath, the sun will shine, the mountains will stand, the rain will fall, the streams will whisper—and they will not miss him.

Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It's so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You're given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it is, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.

...the wind has a purpose - to rattle the window panes, disturb the cat and make me miss you ...

i miss my brother like the sea would miss salt if that were taken away.

He fought as he wished he had all those years ago, for the chance he had missed. In that moment between storms--when the rain stilled and the winds drew in their breaths to blow--he danced with the slayer of kings, and somehow held his own.

I miss it if I’m not in it for any length of time; I don’t feel comfortable. I want trees and I want frequent rain.

I find you in storms, I feel you in the lightning, I miss you in rain.

When you know that something's going to happen, you'll start trying to see signs of its approach in just about everything. Always try to remember that most of the things that happen in this world aren't signs. They happen because they happen, and their only real significance lies in normal cause and effect. You'll drive yourself crazy if you start trying to pry the meaning out of every gust of wind or rain squall. I'm not denying that there might actually be a few signs that you won't want to miss. Knowing the difference is the tricky part.

I almost miss the sound of your voice but know that the rain outside my window will suffice for tonight. I’m not drunk yet, but we haven’t spoken in months now and I wanted to tell you that someone threw a bouquet of roses in the trash bin on the corner of my street, and I wanted to cry because, because — well, you know exactly why. And, I guess I’m calling because only you understand how that would break my heart. I’m running out of things to say. My gas is running on empty. I’ve stopped stealing pages out of poetry books, but last week I pocketed a thesaurus and looked for synonyms for you but could only find rain and more rain and a thunderstorm that sounded like glass, like crystal, like an orchestra. I wanted to tell you that I’m not afraid of being moved anymore; Not afraid of this heart packing up its things and flying transcontinental with only a wool coat and a pocket with a folded-up address inside. I’ve saved up enough money to disappear. I know you never thought the day would come. Do you remember when we said goodbye and promised that it was only for then? It’s been years since I last saw you, years since we last have spoken. Sometimes, it gets quiet enough that I can hear the cicadas rubbing their thighs against each other’s. I’ve forgotten almost everything about you already, except that your skin was soft, like the belly of a peach, and how you would laugh, making fun of me for the way I pronounced almonds like I was falling in love with language.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

You’re not doing well and finally I don’t have to pretend to be so interested in your on going tragedy, but I’ll rob the bank that gave you the impression that money is more fruitful than words, and I’ll cut holes in the ozone if it means you have one less day of rain. I’ll walk you to the hospital, I’ll wait in a white room that reeks of hand sanitizer and latex for the results from the MRI scan that tries to locate the malady that keeps your mind guessing, and I want to write you a poem every day until my hand breaks and assure you that you’ll find your place, it’s just the world has a funny way of hiding spots fertile enough for bodies like yours to grow roots. and I miss you like a dart hits the iris of a bullseye, or a train ticket screams 4:30 at 4:47, I wanted to tell you that it’s my birthday on Thursday and I would have wanted you to give me the gift of your guts on the floor, one last time, to see if you still had it in you. I hope our ghosts aren’t eating you alive. If I’m to speak for myself, I’ll tell you that the universe is twice as big as we think it is and you’re the only one that made that idea less devastating.

I will love you like the desert burns along the sun when they are together, and when you will be gone, just like every one else, I will cry for you like the snow that melts at the first hint of summer... and hoping that you'll be back I will miss you like the clouds lose themselves when it rains...

I guess, really thinking about it, I always assumed when you missed someone , it was tangible...something real you could grab and hold on to, but it's a not-there feeling.

A POCKET-SIZED GIRL He keeps me in his pocket for a rainy day; he swears I'm not an object as he yo-yo's me away. A friend is what we'll call it, but my friend, he does not know, each time it rains I love him— so to his pocket, I must go. He thinks he's being clever, but I am not a fool; his love ain't worth a penny, so to my heart I must be cruel.

If I were a cinnamon peeler I would ride your bed and leave the yellow bark dust on your pillow. Your breasts and shoulders would reek you could never walk through markets without the profession of my fingers floating over you. The blind would stumble certain of whom they approached though you might bathe under rain gutters, monsoon. Here on the upper thigh at this smooth pasture neighbor to your hair or the crease that cuts your back. This ankle. You will be known among strangers as the cinnamon peeler's wife. I could hardly glance at you before marriage never touch you -- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers. I buried my hands in saffron, disguised them over smoking tar, helped the honey gatherers... When we swam once I touched you in water and our bodies remained free, you could hold me and be blind of smell. You climbed the bank and said this is how you touch other women the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter. And you searched your arms for the missing perfume. and knew what good is it to be the lime burner's daughter left with no trace as if not spoken to in an act of love as if wounded without the pleasure of scar. You touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon peeler's wife. Smell me.

Rain, in your glorious presence, Miss Temminnick? I hardly think it should dare.

Slow Dance: Have you ever watched kids, On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain, Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don't dance too fast. Time is short. The music won't last. Do you run through each day, On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed, With the next hundred chores, Running through your head? You'd better slow down, Don't dance too fast. Time is short, The music won't last. Ever told your child we'll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die, Cause you never had time, To call and say Hi? You'd better slow down. Don't dance so fast. Time is short. The music won't last. When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music, Before the song is over.

Mary bring out your umbrella - The sun shines down on this fine, fine day But the ashes raining down forever Are going to turn your hair to gray. Mary keep your oars a-steady Sail away on the rising flood Keep your candle at the ready Red tides can't be told from blood. - "Miss Mary" (a common child's clapping game, dating from the time of the blitz), from Pattycake and Beyond: A History of Play

She sheltered her colors in the dark, where others were blind to see; I caught a glimpse of her lastly when she gave me a chance, before disappearing into the day. There was beauty locked in her that unfolded like an umbrella's claw, her true self that desired compassion, trust, protection and the potential to soar. But I missed to late, that what I wasn't looking for, when she left her reasons in the rain.

Wanting love is not selfish, Rain. We're all born missing the connections that make us complete.

Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.

You're missing the point! ... We could make it rain cupcakes from the sky! Raspberry-jam pies would grow on trees, and chocolate rabbits would poop chocolate buttons!

Weatherman says," Kev scoffed. "I wouldn't trust that silly bugger to know it's raining now.

I miss a good cup of tea, dancing, boys- definitely not rain." "We dance," Diana protested. Maeve had just laughed. "You dance differently when you know you won't live forever.

Walking around, even on a bad day, I would see things – I mean just the things that were in front of me. People’s faces, the weather, traffic. The smell of petrol from the garage, the feeling of being rained on, completely ordinary things. And in that way even the bad days were good, because I felt them and remembered feeling them. There was something delicate about living like that – like I was an instrument and the world touched me and reverberated inside me. After a couple of months, I started to miss days. Sometimes I would fall asleep without remembering to write anything, but then other nights I’d open the book and not know what to write – I wouldn’t be able to think of anything at all. When I did make entries, they were increasingly verbal and abstract: song titles, or quotes from novels, or text messages from friends. By spring I couldn’t keep it up anymore. I started to put the diary away for weeks at a time – it was just a cheap black notebook I got at work – and then eventually I’d take it back out to look at the entries from the previous year. At that point, I found it impossible to imagine ever feeling again as I had apparently once felt about rain or flowers. It wasn’t just that I failed to be delighted by sensory experiences – it was that I didn’t actually seem to have them anymore. I would walk to work or go out for groceries or whatever and by the time I came home again I wouldn’t be able to remember seeing or hearing anything distinctive at all. I suppose I was seeing but not looking – the visual world just came to me flat, like a catalogue of information. I never looked at things anymore, in the way I had before.

The uncertainty, the fear of the unknown was driving him, almost to the point of desperation. He felt as if he was going down a dark stairway, missing a step, hurtling into the unknown and having no idea where he would land.

Every time I am in the dark and a bit of light falls on me, I see a bit of you in my shadows. There is always a bit of you in every song I hear, in every thought I conceive, in every rain that I drench in, in every star that I stare at in the sky every night and in every breeze that touches me.

It shouldn't have mattered, not when Miel and the other girls in his class wore jeans more than they wore skirts. Not when they told their brothers what to do, and borrowed their fathers' books. But there was everything else. The idea of being called Miss or Ms. or worse, Mrs. The thought of being grouped in when someone called out 'girls' or 'ladies.' The endless, echoing use of 'she' and 'her,' 'miss' and 'ma'am.' Yes, they were words. They were all just words. But each of them was wrong, and they stuck to him. Each one was a golden fire ant, and they were biting his arms and his neck and his bound-flat chest, leaving him bleeding and burning. 'He.' 'Him.' 'Mister.' 'Sir.' Even teachers admonishing him and his classmates with 'boys, settle down' or 'gentlemen, please.' These were sounds as perfect and clean as winter rain, and they calmed each searing bite of those wrong words.

The window rattles without you, you bastard. The trees are the cause, rattling in the wind, you jerk, the wind scraping those leaves and twigs against my window. They'll keep doing this, you terrible husband, and slowly wear away our entire apartment building. I know all these facts about you and there is no longer any use for them. What will I do with your license plate number, and where you hid the key outside so we'd never get locked out of this shaky building? What good does it do me, your pants size and the blue cheese preference for dressing? Who opens the door in the morning now, and takes the newspaper out of the plastic bag when it rains? I'll never get back all the hours I was nice to your parents. I nudge my cherry tomatoes to the side of the plate, bastard, but no one is waiting there with a fork to eat them. I miss you and I love you, bastard bastard bastard, come and clean the onion skins out of the crisper and trim back the tree so I can sleep at night.

The sailors say the rain misses the cloud even as it falls through light or dark into the sea. I miss her like that as I fall through my life, through time, the chaos of our time. I dream she is alive even now, but there is nothing to give weight or value to that, it is only me, and what I want to be true. It is only longing. We can want things so much sometimes. It is the way we are.

everyone knows, at some level, that the sharp line between "good weather" and "bad weather" is a fiction, that we need rain as surely as we need sun.

Without a clear recognition of your brand and a focus plan you can miss your mark in the middle of great success.

It is raining at the top of my roof and I'am inside my blanket in this chilling night with an open window, missing my love and listning the rain singing a lullaby to me.

The rain always makes me wonder What is it that the clouds ponder? Will I write something tonight? But I don't want to miss the thunder!

Grief expressed out loud, whether in or out of character, unchoreographed and honest, for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.

I'll never miss a chance to remind you of what a brat you were. A gloriously beautiful and very spoiled brat. I was utterly charmed by your complete self-absorption. It was rather like courting a cat.

Do not miss me, because I will always be with you. In every drop of rain that touches your tongue, in every breath of air you inhale. In the tips of the leaves that you brush with your fingertips as you pass by. I will be there, in every moment. I am not gone, I am only altered, from this state of matter to another. For a moment, for too brief a moment, I was the man that loved you, but now that I am changed, I am the air, the moon, the stars. For we are all made of stars, my beloved. You and I, and all of life, we were all born out of the death of a star, millions of billions of years ago. A star that lived long and then, before its death, burned at its brightest, its fiercest - an enflaming supernova. But when it died, it did not cease to exist; instead everything it was made of became part of the universe once again, and everything that is part of the universe will once more become part of us. So do not miss me, because I do not die; I transform - into the wind in the tops of the trees, the wave on the ocean, the pebbles under your foot, the dust on your bookshelves, the midnight sky. Wherever you look, I will be there.

And my biggest fear would be forever missing a piece. You see our story was never complete, and it's supposed to be finished but you haven't yet heard all of me. So listen because my biggest fear would be missing out on how it truly feels . I will forever miss a touch though i never tried it on my face; i might miss how cold it is and i might miss how warm it left me, i might miss how it perfectly traces every line and i might miss how it gets lost everytime. I will forever miss a hand that held my heart, one that only learnt how to wave goodbye, one that only learnt how to part, i will never know how your fingers interlaced with mine, though i have been always sure that they fit perfectly inside. And I know i will definitely miss waking up to your eyes, i will miss knowing they see right through me, i will miss having that subtle silent stare reassure my heart. And a very long playlist will go to waste, no slow dancing not on the kitchen floor and never once in the rain.Just know I already miss having your back, but you are the one who turned yours and i don't know if i should ever forgive that.

He'd missed dogs. Dogs added something that even people didn't, and one of the dogs was sitting by his feet, here in the darkness and the gentle rain. It wasn't bothered much about the rain or what might be out there on the unseen sea, but Mau was a warm body moving about in a sleeping world and might at any moment do something that called for runnung around and barking. Occasionally it looked up at him adoringly and made a slobbery gulping noise which possibly meant "Anything you say, boss!

It used to be, you’d open your mouth And the weather changed. You’d Open your mouth and the sky’d spill That dry, missing-someone kind of rain No matter the season. And it hurt Like a guitar hurts under the right hands. Like a good strong spell. Now You’re all song. Body gone to memory. And guess what? It hurts Harder.

The wind took me away from you, Draped with fear, waking nightmare, I lost all sense of who I could become, Your exuberant hold slipped away, Irresolute, impulsive, irreconcilable.

I miss the floral scent of her hair, the perfume that barely masked the underlying truth of what she was. She was lost time. She smelled of dusty libraries and unwound clocks, salted sand and rain riding on the first rays of dawn. And lilac. When she held me to her, lilac was what I smelled first.

They say that if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian rain forest, it can change the weather half a world away. Chaos theory. What it means is that everything that happens in this moment is an accumulation of everything that’s come before it. Every breath. Every thought. There is no innocent action. Some actions end up having the force of a tempest. Their impact cannot be missed. Others are the blink of an eye. Passing by unnoticed. Perhaps only God knows which is which. All I know today is that you can think that what you’ve done is only the flap of a butterfly wing, when it’s really a thunderclap. And both can result in a hurricane.

Pandas and rain forests are never mentioned when it comes to the millions of people taking joyrides in their Range Rovers. Rather, it's the little things we're strong-armed into conserving. At a chain coffee bar in San Francisco, I saw a sign near the cream counter that read NAPKINS COME FROM TREES - CONSERVE! In case you missed the first sign, there was a second one two feet away, reading YOU WASTE NAPKINS - YOU WASTE TREES!!! The cups, of course, are also made of paper, yet there's no mention of the mighty redwood when you order your four-dollar coffee. The guilt applies only to those things that are being given away for free.

On the screen it rained and rained confetti, for minutes, and that glitter-rain, plus the cameras flashing and the lights from the billboards and the awesome mass of the crowds in their shiny hats and toothy smiles, made the world pop and shine and blur in a way that makes you sad to be watching it all on your TV screen, in a way that makes you feel like, instead of bringing the action into your living room, the TV cameras are just reminding you of how much you're missing, confronting you with it, you in your pajamas, on your couch, a couple of pizza crusts resting in some orange grease on a paper plate in front of you, your glass of soda mostly flat and watery, the ice all melted, and the good stuff happening miles and miles away from where you're at.

Just bad sex, just poor relationships, just missed opportunities and flowers someone never gave you. Everybody thinks it’s just spoiled romance that breaks your heart. They never consider the bad days and the kitchen scissors and the way rain looks smashed up against a window pane, the way people mill about in train stations, the way it feels when you walk down to the mailbox and always find it empty.

I’m here for whatever you need, whenever you need, because you’re my best friend and my true love and I’ve missed you. Not having you in my life has been like losing a limb that no one can see is missing.

But now? Now? Children in the twentieth and this early twenty-first century hated the Alice books, couldn't read them, and why should they? Their world had strayed into madness long ago. Look at the planet. Rain is acid, poisonous. Sun causes cancer. Sex=death. Children murder other children. Parents lie, leaders lie, the churches have less moral credibility than Benetton ads. And the faces of missing children staring out from milk cartons-imagine all those poor Lost Boys, and Lost Girls, not in Neverland but lost here, lost now. No wonder Wonderland isn't funny anymore: We live there full-time. We need a break from it.

Oliver's boardroom was actually a library. A good library. A library where books looked worn-out and well read and loved on. The library was two stories tall with a balcony wrapped around the top level. The big window on the top floor was propped half open. A rebel beam of sunlight pushed through the clouds, shining through the rain beads stuck to the screen and glass. And then that strange, golden rain light shone warm and pretty over Oliver's books. I wondered if the sun had missed the books, had waited as long as it possibly cold to shine over those spines again. I knew how that felt, to love a story so much you didn't just want to read it, you wanted to feel it.

THE DAY YOU READ THIS On this day, you read something that moved you and made you realise there were no more fears to fear. No tears to cry. No head to hang in shame. That every time you thought you’d offended someone, it was all just in your head and really, they love you with all their heart and nothing will ever change that. That everyone and everything lives on inside you. That that doesn’t make any of it any less real. That soft touches will change you and stay with you longer than hard ones. That being alone means you’re free. That old lovers miss you and new lovers want you and the one you’re with is the one you’re meant to be with. That the tingles running down your arms are angel feathers and they whisper in your ear, constantly, if you choose to hear them. That everything you want to happen, will happen, if you decide you want it enough. That every time you think a sad thought, you can think a happy one instead. That you control that completely. That the people who make you laugh are more beautiful than beautiful people. That you laugh more than you cry. That crying is good for you. That the people you hate wish you would stop and you do too. That your friends are reflections of the best parts of you. That you are more than the sum total of the things you know and how you react to them. That dancing is sometimes more important than listening to the music. That the most embarrassing, awkward moments of your life are only remembered by you and no one else. That no one judges you when you walk into a room and all they really want to know, is if you’re judging them. That what you make and what you do with your time is more important than you’ll ever fathom and should be treated as such. That the difference between a job and art is passion. That neither defines who you are. That talking to strangers is how you make friends. That bad days end but a smile can go around the world. That life contradicts itself, constantly. That that’s why it’s worth living. That the difference between pain and love is time. That love is only as real as you want it to be. That if you feel good, you look good but it doesn’t always work the other way around. That the sun will rise each day and it’s up to you each day if you match it. That nothing matters up until this point. That what you decide now, in this moment, will change the future. Forever. That rain is beautiful. And so are you.

I’ll teach you how to decipher all the confused faces by closing your eyes & how to cringe when someone says the words ‘your generation’. I will teach you how not to demonise your enemies & how to make yourself unappetising when the hordes turn up to eat you. I’ll teach you how to yell with your mouth closed & how to steal happiness & how the only real joy is singing yourself hoarse & nude girls & how never to eat in an empty restaurant & how not to leave the windows of your heart open when it looks like rain & how everyone has a stump where something necessary was amputated. I’ll teach you how to know what’s missing.

I don't know what I was hoping for. Some small praise, I guess. A bit of encouragement. I didn't get it. Miss Parrish took me aside one day after school let out. She said she'd read my stories and found them morbid and dispiriting. She said literature was meant to uplift the heart and that a young woman such as myself ought to turn her mind to topics more cheerful and inspiring than lonely hermits and dead children. "Look around yourself, Mathilda," she said. "At the magnificence of nature. It should inspire joy and awe. Reverence. Respect. Beautiful thoughts and fine words." I had looked around. I'd seen all the things she'd spoken of and more besides. I'd seen a bear cub lift it's face to the drenching spring rains. And the sliver moon of winter, so high and blinding. I'd seen the crimson glory of a stand of sugar maples in autumn and the unspeakable stillness of a mountain lake at dawn. I'd seen them and loved them. But I'd also seen the dark of things. The starved carcasses of winter deer. The driving fury of a blizzard wind. And the gloom that broods under the pines always. Even on the brightest days.

You know sometimes when I walk into your room with a flashlight or a candle?' I nodded. 'Well, love is like that. Light doesn't have to announce it's way into a room or ask the darkness to leave. It just is. It walks ahead of you, and the darkness rolls back like a tide.' She waved her hand across the room. 'It has to 'cause darkness can't be where light is.

MOTHER – By Ted Kooser Mid April already, and the wild plums bloom at the roadside, a lacy white against the exuberant, jubilant green of new grass and the dusty, fading black of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet, only the delicate, star-petaled blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume. You have been gone a month today and have missed three rains and one nightlong watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar from six to eight while fat spring clouds went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured, a storm that walked on legs of lightning, dragging its shaggy belly over the fields. The meadowlarks are back, and the finches are turning from green to gold. Those same two geese have come to the pond again this year, honking in over the trees and splashing down. They never nest, but stay a week or two then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts, burning in circles like birthday candles, for this is the month of my birth, as you know, the best month to be born in, thanks to you, everything ready to burst with living. There will be no more new flannel nightshirts sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand. You asked me if I would be sad when it happened and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner, as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that. Were it not for the way you taught me to look at the world, to see the life at play in everything, I would have to be lonely forever.

There’s a fundamental rule of the universe that goes like this: if you’re running late, you will miss your bus. You’ll also miss your bus if it’s raining or if you have somewhere really important to go, like the SATs or a driver’s test. Dara and I have a word for that kind of luck: crapdiment. Just crap smeared on top of more crap.

Look at a politician, eighty years old, making a speech to a crowd in the rain. What's driving him? Not ambition. He’s been a senator for forty years. He can never be anything more. But by winning this election he can have one more Hit. He’d rather die of pneumonia than risk missing the Hit.

I am shocked to find that some people think a 2 star 'I liked it' rating is a bad rating. What? I liked it. I LIKED it! That means I read the whole thing, to the last page, in spite of my life raining comets on me. It's a good book that survives the reading process with me. If a book is so-so, it ends up under the bed somewhere, or maybe under a stinky judo bag in the back of the van. So a 2 star from me means,yes, I liked the book, and I'd loan it to a friend and it went everywhere in my jacket pocket or purse until I finished it. A 3 star means that I've ignored friends to finish it and my sink is full of dirty dishes. A 4 star means I'm probably in trouble with my editor for missing a deadline because I was reading this book. But I want you to know . . . I don't finish books I don't like. There's too many good ones out there waiting to be found. Robin Hobb, author

Yeah – Sure I remember Matter of fact it was just last September She still calls it the fall to remember Little Heather when it all came together You remember the first time you met her? She cried when it rained and blamed the weather But inside she strained with suicide letters The kind of cold you couldn’t warm with a sweater Hardly lasted past December She said she was headed down to defeat That’s the last you’d seen and never had dreamed That the same little Heather – It’s who you saw last week In an instant you couldn’t have missed her gleam As she listened she looked like a distant queen With a difference, there for all to see She found a different – A different kind of free

It was an excellent coat. It was long, grey, suspiciously blotched, smelt faintly of dust and old curries, went all the way down to my knees and overhung my wrists even when I stretched out my arms. It had big, smelly pockets, crunchy with crumbs, it boasted the remnants of a waterproof sheen, was missing a few buttons, and had once been beige. It was the coat that detectives down the ages had worn while trailing a beautiful, dangerous, presumably blond suspect in the rain, the coat that no one noticed, shapeless, bland and grey - it suited my purpose perfectly.

But if Miss Golightly remained unconscious of my existence, except as a doorbell convenience, I became, through the summer, rather an authority on hers. I discovered, from observing the trash-basket outside her door, that her regular reading consisted of tabloids and travel folders and astrological charts; that she smoked an esoteric cigarette called Picayunes; survived on cottage cheese and Melba Toast; that her vari-colored hair was somewhat self-induced. The same source made it evident that she received V-letters by the bale. They were torn into strips like bookmarks. I used occasionally to pluck myself a bookmark in passing. Remember and miss you and rain and please write and damn and goddamn were the words that recurred most often on these slips; those, and lonesome and love.

I will run every mile, i will save every line, i will say i reached the top and i will fall back down standing. I will write down every thing, the good and the bad,I will wake up one day and go back to the start. I will notice that the good ones were nothing but my beautiful lines, were everything painted by my mind. I will notice that the bad ones were nothing but pieces of my pain that should have been crumbled and thrown away the first time i started to rain. I will leave home and i won't mind, i will miss some beating pieces but i will survive.the sky will stay in place, mountains won't shake and my mind will go nowhere.the stars will  take my side not yours, and the new air in your chest will feel forever cold. I will donate a piece of my heart to hurt you forever and a lifelong lasting question about what you have lost.My hands won't ever fit in yours and my faith says that crown on your head will hurt you the most. One day i won't overlook anything anymore. One day i won't remember anything anymore.I will stop pretending i'm ice cold and i will learn how to be strong.one day I will grow out of this, i will grow out of us.

Aiden had filled a part of my heart that I hadn’t known was empty. And for that I’d be forever grateful. Beneath the pain was the reality of the end of whatever it was we’d shared. I missed him, and his absence was profound. He was everywhere, yet he was nowhere at all.

increasingly we live in a world filled with the equivalents of deadly garage-door openers, unnecessary items that offer us mild and insipid comfort at the price of a dangerous and uncomfortable planet, and at the price of any real relationship to the physical world. if you live in a suburban home and commute to a parking garage somewhere, that ten seconds of opening the garage door(manually) might be nearly the only rain you ever feel.

Some people give theirselves a certain number of white weeks once in a year, when they do not drink a single drop of alcohol. It is really wise. I myself have a few weeks per year, let us call them white or black, when I am not interested in the world around. When I come back from this isolation of the news, I realize that I have missed nothing significant. We live in the rain of disinformation and rumors, where the truth is a very small number. In those weeks of dissociation I seek for knowledge that lies within me.

If you waste time looking at the clouds, you might miss the stars. If you waste time looking at the storm, you might miss the rainbow. If you waste time looking at the rain, you might miss the sunshine. If you waste time looking at the seeds, you might miss the harvest. If you waste time looking at the river, you might miss the ocean. If you waste time looking at the thorns, you might miss the roses. If you waste time looking at the past, you might miss the future. If you waste time looking at the losses, you might miss the victories. If you waste time looking at the tragedies, you might miss the miracles.

More and more, when something terrible happens, we declare, “That’s life!” — as though disappointment and heartache declare the sum total of this existence. We miss the roses and see only the thorns. We take for granted the warmth of the sun and get depressed by the frequency of the rain or the snow. We ignore the sounds of life in a nursery because we are preoccupied with the sounds of sirens responding to an emergency. We forget the marvel of a marriage that has endured the test of time because we feel discouraged by the heartaches of loved ones whose marriages didn’t make it to the end.

Nothing Here is Enough” I need a parrot, identical days, a quantity of needles, and artificial ink to make history. I need veiled eyelids, black lines, and ruined puppets to make geography. I need a sky wider than longing, and water that is not H2O to make wings. The days are no longer enough to distinguish the missing. I no longer see you because I no longer dream. I offer a tear to the rain as if scattering you in the Dead Sea, and in order to sing you, I need glass to muffle the sound.

God is all right—why should we mind standing in the dark for a minute outside his window? Of course we miss the inness, but there is a bliss of its own in waiting. What if the rain be falling, and the wind blowing; what if we stand alone, or, more painful still, have some dear one beside us, sharing our outness; what even if the window be not shining, because of the curtains of good inscrutable drawn across it; let us think to ourselves, or say to our friend, ‘God is; Jesus is not dead; nothing can be going wrong, however it may look so to hearts unfinished in childness.’ Let us say to the Lord, ‘Jesus, art thou loving the Father in there? Then we out here will do his will, patiently waiting till he open the door. We shall not mind the wind or the rain much. Perhaps thou art saying to the Father, ‘Thy little ones need some wind and rain: their buds are hard; the flowers do not come out. I cannot get them made blessed without a little more winter-weather.’ Then perhaps the Father will say, ‘Comfort them, my son Jesus, with the memory of thy patience when thou wast missing me. Comfort them that thou wast sure of me when everything about thee seemed so unlike me, so unlike the place thou hadst left.

I wish I hadn't met you in the rain: it comes every winter. I wish you hadn't told me your favorite wine: I've become a drinker. I wish I never showed you my hidden birthmark: It looks back at me at night asking where you are. I wish I hadn't read you my journal, all the pages praising you, It's corrupted now that I can't tell if I write for me or you. I wish I hadn't told you my daily routine: it's not mine anymore. I can't enjoy 11:11, my favorite song, a birthday cake, or a concert tour. I'm not afraid of the future, it's the past that takes a while.

I lost my voice and my best friend too On swift, fierce winds and wings of blue, The cold rain fell where beams had shone, So I wrapped up tight and safe. Alone. But I missed my friend, I missed my voice, And my heart still whispered of another choice To break out of my binding, safe, and warm, And see what the world looked like after the storm. So I struggled free and was greeted by Colorful brushstrokes across the sky, The melody of the summer breeze And blue wings like mine in hazel trees. On the soft, sweet air of the mountain glade, We gathered together in cool, green shade, And told our stories, beginnings to ends, And found our song in the hearts of new friends.

I admit it, I'm tired. Over the years, I've hidden away my suffering. I smile when I feel like crying. I laugh when I feel like dying. I have to stare at pictures of my children and my grandchildren to see them grow up. I miss the simplest things of ordinary life — having dinner with friends, taking walks in the woods. I miss gardening. I miss children's laughter. I miss dogs barking. I miss the feel of the rain on my face. I miss babies. I miss the sound of birds singing and of women laughing. I miss winter and summer and spring and fall. Yes, I miss my freedom. So would you.

You knew, from the first day in Miss Garber’s class that I was going to do the play, didn’t you. When you looked at me and smiled?” She nodded. “Yes.” “And when I asked you to the homecoming dance, you made me promise that I wouldn’t fall in love, but you knew that I was going to, didn’t you?” She had a mischievous gleam in her eye. “Yes.” “How did you know?” She shrugged without answering, and we sat together for a few moments, watching the rain as it blew against the windows. “When I told you that I prayed for you,” she finally said to me, “what did you think I was talking about?

Forgotten Stars. Time in the Flame. Missing Shard. The Only Rain. Door of the Memory. Waves in the Silk. Silent Birch. Thoughts of Lunatics. Secret of the Flowers. Soaring of the Souls. Heart in the Night. And a Kiss Unfolds. Forgotten Voyager. Voyage in the Words. Nothing of the World. Someone of the Hemisphere. Trembling Stones. Sucking Tears. The Next Gift. The World in the Kisses. Missing Angels. The Woman of the Girl. Guardian of the Rings. Thorn in the Pearl. Whispering Sword. Touching exclaim. Soul in the Truth. Heat in the Flame. Thy name, my name, Thy name! Came. Became. To Remain.

I felt that the magical people must be in the hidden back roads and dusty cubby holes of life; on highways, in hostels, and in shabby, smoky cafes. These enchanting people are in trees, around fires and under hand-knit hats and street lamps reflecting gold on rain soaked pavement. They dance while others dangle; they vibrantly sing the songs that get jumbled and stuck in the subconscious of others who only wish to catch tune. They are the rare ones whose uncommon experiences touch your heart through just a wink of their eye, the stories stitched in the holes of their shoes, invoking a longing for the unknown, taking others to a place of missing what they've never even had -- they do not settle, they do not compromise.

Four hundred forty-six,” Cole whispered. “What?” she asked. He kept his head down in what seemed to be a prayer. “He counts. You’ve smiled at him four hundred and forty-six times as of a few minutes ago. He announces the number every time I see him.” “I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t think you were real. Considering my line of work, I should have more faith in humanity.” Cole shook his head. “I think it was smile two hundred eighty-six that drove me the most crazy. It was the night train. Blake was so sick, feverish. Honestly, I was considering taking him to the hospital. But no. He didn’t want to miss a smile. He wouldn’t even let me drive him. Blake walked the whole way in the pouring rain for number two eighty-six.

Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, 'I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr Raine.' Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that evening. Dr Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, 'Boy, take down your pants...' Well, well...

They way I walk now you’d have a hard time recognising me, on these streets where I once imagined walking with you. Hand in hand, like we always did, and it never mattered where we were going because it was all just fine. I was always fine. But they rest restlessly in my pockets now, in a new town, on these new streets, and it’s heavy to stay standing for my body is half the size when you’re gone and these buildings are tall and old and beautiful and I wonder what secrets they hold. How to stand so proud after so many years because I’m still young but I feel worn and I get through the days on too much caffeine and mood altering chemicals to stay awake long enough to make the poetry come alive. I fall asleep on the floor with the music still playing when my neighbour leaves for the office and I’m jealous. I wonder what it’s like to go outside and know where to go, know where you want to end up and just simply go there. I’ve been making lists of things I want to do, where to go and who to be, now that you’re gone, and it’s nice and all, it’s just … I’d rather write it with you, and go there with you. Be things with you. There were days when I still put on make up in case you’d come back, but I wear the same clothes and shower in the rain, eat when I can and sleep when I can, which is rare and not often, so if you’d see me now on these streets where I once imagined walking with you you’d have a hard time recognising me. It takes a lot to run away.

I didn't sleep all night, thinking. I thought about you, about those puppy eyes you give me, when you fake your sadness to make me smile-- and that upper lip of yours that brings life to all of my senses. I thought about your laughter when you get tickled, and that soft mellow place near your arm pit that I wish could be knit into a pillow for me to hug all night long. I thought about your stomach, your soft and sensitive stomach, scared like a baby kitten under the pouring rain. And I remembered the feeling of protection that comes washing over me when I get a glimpse of it, the feeling of covering it with the layers of my very own skin. I remembered your head when it rests on my heart, a rock sheltering itself on the verdure of infinity. I remembered your silky black hair, and how I never imagined that hair curls so thin could twirl, in the way they do, the rigid core of my existence.

Human language, for us moderns, has swung in on itself, turning its back on the beings around us. Language is a human property, suitable only for communication with other persons. We talk to people; we do not speak to the ground underfoot. We've largely forgotten the incantatory and invocational use of speech as a way of bringing ourselves into deeper rapport with the beings around us, or of calling the living land into resonance with us. It is a power we still brush up against whenever we use our words to bless and to curse, or to charm someone we're drawn to. But we wield such eloquence only to sway other people, and so we miss the greater magnetism, the gravitational power that lies within such speech. The beaver gliding across the pond, the fungus gripping a thick trunk, a boulder shattered by its tumble down a cliff or the rain splashing upon those granite fragments -- we talk about such beings, the weather and the weathered stones, but we do not talk to them. Entranced by the denotative power of words to define, to order, to represent the things around us, we've overlooked the songful dimension of language so obvious to our oral [storytelling] ancestors. We've lost our ear for the music of language -- for the rhythmic, melodic layer of speech by which earthly things overhear us.

For everything there is a season. I'd miss having the seasons, people from New York like to say by way of indicating the extraordinary pride they take in not living in Southern California. In fact Southern California does have seasons (it has for example "fire season" or "the season when the fire comes," and it also has the season when the rains comes, but such Southern California seasons, arriving as they do so theatrically as to seem strokes of random fate, do not inexorably suggest the passage of time. Those other seasons, the ones so prized on the East Coast, do. Seasons in Southern California suggest violence, but not necessarily death. Seasons in New York-the relentless dropping of the leaves, the steady darkening of the days, the blue nights themselves-suggest only death.

As far as he could discover, there were no signs of spring. The decay that covered the surface of the mottled ground was not the kind in which life generates. Last year, he remembered, May had failed to quicken these soiled fields. It had taken all the brutality of July to torture a few green spikes through the exhausted dirt. What the little park needed, even more than he did, was a drink. Neither alcohol nor rain would do. Tomorrow, in his column, he would ask Broken-hearted, Sick-of-it-all, Desperate, Disillusioned-with-tubercular-husband and the rest of his correspondents to come here and water the soil with their tears. Flowers would then spring up, flowers that smelled of feet. "Ah, humanity..." But he was heavy with shadow and the joke went into a dying fall. He trist to break its fall by laughing at himself.

And you remember how warm bourbon tasted, in a paper cup with water dipped out of the lake at your feet. How the nights were so unbearably, hauntingly beautiful that you wanted to cry. How every patch of light and shadow from the moon seemed deep and lovely. Calm or storm, it didn't matter. It was exquisite and mysterious, just because it was night. I wonder now how I lost it, the mysteriousness, the wonder. It faded steadily until one day it was entirely gone, and night became just dark, and the moon was only something that waxed and waned and heralded a changing in the weather. And rain just washed out graveled roads. The glitter was gone. And the worst part was that you didn't know exactly at what point it disappeared. There was nothing you could point to and say: now, there. One day you saw that it was missing and had been missing for a long time. It wasn't even anything to grieve over, it had been such a long time passing. The glitter and hush-breath quality just slipped away...there isn't even a scene--not for me, nothing so definite--just the seepage, the worms of time...I look at my children now and I think: how long before they slip away, before I am disappointed in them.

everything. I would never want depression to be a public or political excuse, but I think that once you have gone through it, you get a greater and more immediate understanding of the temporary absence of judgment that makes people behave so badly—you learn even, perhaps, how to tolerate the evil in the world.” On the happy day when we lose depression, we will lose a great deal with it. If the earth could feed itself and us without rain, and if we conquered the weather and declared permanent sun, would we not miss grey days and summer storms? As the sun seems brighter and more clear when it comes on a rare day of English summer after ten months of dismal skies than it can ever seem in the tropics, so recent happiness feels enormous and embracing and beyond anything I have ever imagined. Curiously enough, I love my depression. I do not love experiencing my depression, but I love the depression itself. I love who I am in the wake of it. Schopenhauer said, “Man is [content] according to how dull and insensitive he is”; Tennessee Williams, asked for the definition of happiness, replied “insensitivity.” I do not agree with them. Since I have been to the Gulag and survived it, I know that if I have to go to the Gulag again, I could survive that also; I’m more confident in some odd way than I’ve ever imagined being. This almost (but not quite) makes the depression seem worth it. I do not think that I will ever again try to kill myself; nor do I think

I let no chance go by untaken. I never hesitated to follow where my curiosity beckoned. I willingly went where there was danger in beauty and beauty in danger. I had experiences in plenty. Many were enjoyable, some were instructive, a few I would rather have missed. But I had them, and I have them still in memory. If, as soon as tomorrow, I go to my grave, it will be no black and silent hole. I can paint the darkness with vivid colors, and fill it with music both martial and languorous, with the flicker of swords and the flutter of kisses, with flavors and excitements and sensations, with the fragrance of a field of clover that has been warmed in the sun and then washed by a gentle rain, the sweetest-scented thing God ever put on this earth. Yes, I can enliven eternity. Others may have to endure it; I can enjoy it.

The fact that Aracely might understand what he could not say, it seeded in him a want, new and raw, like not knowing he was thirsty until water was in front of him. No one else, not his mother, not even Miel, could understand this wanting to live a life different from the one he was born into, so much that his own skin felt like ice cracking. It shouldn't have mattered, not when Miel and the other girls in his class wore jeans more than they wore skirts. Not when they went out as late as they wanted. Not when they told their brothers what to do, and borrowed their fathers' books. But there was everything else. The idea of being called Miss or Ms. or, worse, Mrs. The thought of being grouped in when someone called out 'girls' or 'ladies.' The endless, echoing use of 'she' and 'her,' 'miss' and 'ma'am.' Yes, they were words. They were all just words. But each of them was wrong, and they stuck to him. Each one was a golden fire ant, and they were biting his arms and his neck and his bound-flat chest, leaving him bleeding and burning. 'He. Him. Mister. Sir.' Even teachers admonishing him and his classmates with 'boys, settle down,' or 'gentlemen, please.' These were sounds as perfect and clean as winter rain, and they calmed each searing bite of those wrong words.

You're interesting when you sleep." He spoke matter-of-factly. "You talk." "No!" I gasped, heat flooding my face all the way to my hairline. I gripped the kitchen counter for support. I knew I talked in my sleep, of course; my mother teased me about it. I hadn't thought it was something I needed to worry about here, though. His expression shifted instantly to chagrin. "Are you very angry with me?" "That depends!" I felt and sounded like I'd had the breath knocked out of me. He waited. "On?" he urged. "What you heard!" I wailed. Instantly, silently, he was at my side, taking my hands carefully in his. "Don't be upset!" he pleaded. He dropped his face to the level of my eyes, holding my gaze. I was embarrassed. I tried to look away. "You miss your mother," he whispered. "You worry about her. And when it rains, the sound makes you restless. You used to talk about home a lot, but it's less often now. Once you said, 'It's too green.'" He laughed softly, hoping, I could see, not to offend me further. "Anything else?" I demanded. He knew what I was getting at. "You did say my name," he admitted. I sighed in defeat. "A lot?" "How much do you mean by 'a lot,' exactly?" "Oh no!" I hung my head. He pulled me against his chest, softly, naturally. "Don't be self-conscious," he whispered in my ear. "If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I'm not ashamed of it.

He did atrocious things, but it was him I wanted. Always, only him. Troy stopped when we were nose to nose. Toe to toe. I loved watching those eyes from up-close. They were so ocean blue, no wonder they made my head swim. “I love you, Red. I love you determined, tough, innocent, resilient…” His brows furrowed as he drank me in, stroking the curve of my face with his calloused fingertips. “I love you broken, insecure, scared, furious and pissed off…” He let a small smile loose. I actually felt it, even though it was on his lips. “I love every part of you, the good and the bad, the hopeless and the assertive. We don’t just love. We heal each other with every touch and complete each other with ever kiss. And fuck, I know it’s corny as hell, but that’s what I need. You’re what I need.” My eyes fluttered shut, a lone tear hanging from the tip of my eyelash. “We don’t have ordinary words between us. You always set my fucking brain on fire when you talk to me. We don’t even have ordinary moments of silence. I always feel like I’m playing with you or being played by you when you’re around. And I refuse to let you walk out on this, on us.” He cupped my cheeks and I locked his palms in place, tightening my grip. I never wanted him to let go. He dipped his head down, tilting his forehead against mine. I knew he was right. Knew that I’d already forgiven him. Probably before I even knew what he did, when we were still living together. Hell, probably on that dance floor, when I was nine. My capturer. My monster. My savior. “I’m an asshole, was an asshole, and have every intention of staying an asshole. It’s the makeup of my fucking DNA. But I want to be your asshole. To you, I can be good. Maybe even great. For you, I’ll stop the rain from falling and the thunder from cracking and the wind from fucking blowing. And yes, I sure as hell knew you’d come back. You came straight back into my arms, flew back to your nest, lovebird. Now why would you do that if you didn’t love the shit out of me?” My eyes roamed his face. His hands felt delicious on my skin. It was like he was pumping life into me with his fingertips. Like he made me whole before I even knew parts of me were missing.

Time does not heal wounds. It's a body's ritual that does. The instinctual cleansing with rain or other waters, the application of salves. Despite the sting. Even neglected, the body begins to take care. To repair itself. Blood clots, tissues regenerate, flesh scars. Soon, the thin white line is the only evidence of the pain. It is the body, not time. Time does nothing except create distance between the body and that which caused it harm. Recollection of fear can be stronger than the original fear itself. Similarly, bliss is sometimes more vivid when recollected. How else do you explain longing? Longing for what has already passed. That's the real pain. But you insisted, you pried with your fingers to see. You retuned to me after I turned away. You made me recollect for you, collect again and again for you, interrupting the healing with your curiosity. Now that I have given you the words, you may long for them. You may miss me. You may try to find the notes to the song again and again and won't be able to find them. Perhaps, the wounds I made will already have begun to scar. Maybe the body will have begun its ritual of forgetting. I told you not to ask for haunted, not to ask me to recollect. Because recollection is like tearing at closed wounds. Like pealing back the careful tissue put there by the body to make it safe. And because remembered pain is always worse than the original pain, because this time it is expected. This time you already know how much it will hurt.

To Roam Well, I like this world Well, I like this world Well, I like this world I like it how it was I pray how it was I like it how it was Ghosts in the rain Cold walk of freedom Well, I'm walking a hallway I'm walking a hallway I'm walking a hallway Said, I'm walking a hallway I'm walking a hallway Well, I'm walking a hallway I am proud and I'm gloried Thinking 'bout the day what'll surely come When on the scene, I'm smile evaded When outta nowhere, I'm gonna run But I know where I go, I will be gone Somewhere to run to - if you see You could see it through my mind You wouldn't know it - no way You'd know when my eyes roam Through the fog and hail and sleet I missed the snow and nowhere Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere You should've known where Should've known where You should've known where Should've known better, baby 'Cause I like this world And I like this world Some people want to roam Some people, they roam this world alone Some people were born to roam Some people they roam this world alone Alone

Here again, I follow a light Because I want to end that night Because I want to stop the hunger Because I want to be much stronger Because, all I ever dreamt to be Is living a life of boredom free I find my mind playing a game To seduce a divine cloud of same Ones that rain only on meadows Those who bare no signs of sorrows I sing and laugh, I dance and leap I tell her stories of a past too deep I study her well to know the way To make her happy, to make her stay But when she rains and I realize That she is not what she once was And that my land did not grow A plant of love that I don’t know I miss the sun, I miss the wind And there this cloud’s story ends No more dances, no more songs There I count all her wrongs “You have to leave,” I tell her why she has to leave to free my sky for other clouds, big and divine will never wait nor stand in line There again, I follow a light Because I want to end that night Because I want to stop the hunger Because I want to be much stronger Because, all I ever dreamt to be Is living a life of boredom free

You don’t want to do this, Miss Sheffield,” he warned. “Oh,” she said with great feeling, “I do. I really, really do.” And then, with quite the most evil grin her lips had ever formed, she drew back her mallet and smacked her ball with every ounce of every single emotion within her. It knocked into his with stunning force, sending it hurtling even farther down the hill. Farther . . . Farther . . . Right into the lake. Openmouthed with delight, Kate just stared for a moment as the pink ball sank into the lake. Then something rose up within her, some strange and primitive emotion, and before she knew what she was about, she was jumping about like a crazy woman, yelling, “Yes! Yes! I win!” “You don’t win,” Anthony snapped. “Oh, it feels like I’ve won,” she reveled. Colin and Daphne, who had come dashing down the hill, skidded to a halt before them. “Well done, Miss Sheffield!” Colin exclaimed. “I knew you were worthy of the mallet of death.” “Brilliant,” Daphne agreed. “Absolutely brilliant.” Anthony, of course, had no choice but to cross his arms and scowl mightily. Colin gave her a congenial pat on the back. “Are you certain you’re not a Bridgerton in disguise? You have truly lived up to the spirit of the game.” “I couldn’t have done it without you,” Kate said graciously. “If you hadn’t hit his ball down the hill . . .” “I had been hoping you would pick up the reins of his destruction,” Colin said. The duke finally approached, Edwina at his side. “A rather stunning conclusion to the game,” he commented. “It’s not over yet,” Daphne said. Her husband gave her a faintly amused glance. “To continue the play now seems rather anticlimactic, don’t you think?” Surprisingly, even Colin agreed. “I certainly can’t imagine anything topping it.” Kate beamed. The duke glanced up at the sky. “Furthermore, it’s starting to cloud over. I want to get Daphne in before it starts to rain. Delicate condition and all, you know.” Kate looked in surprise at Daphne, who had started to blush. She didn’t look the least bit pregnant. “Very well,” Colin said. “I move we end the game and declare Miss Sheffield the winner.” “I was two wickets behind the rest of you,” Kate demurred. “Nevertheless,” Colin said, “any true aficionado of Bridgerton Pall Mall understands that sending Anthony into the lake is far more important than actually sending one’s ball through all the wickets. Which makes you our winner, Miss Sheffield.” He looked about, then straight at Anthony. “Does anyone disagree?” No one did, although Anthony looked close to violence. “Excellent,” Colin said. “In that case, Miss Sheffield is our winner, and Anthony, you are our loser.” A strange, muffled sound burst from Kate’s mouth, half laugh and half choke. “Well, someone has to lose,” Colin said with a grin. “It’s tradition.” “It’s true,” Daphne agreed. “We’re a bloodthirsty lot, but we do like to follow tradition.

When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,' Papa would say, 'she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing. "Spread your lips, sweet Lil," they'd cluck, "and show us your choppers!"' This same Crystal Lil, our star-haired mama, sitting snug on the built-in sofa that was Arty's bed at night, would chuckle at the sewing in her lap and shake her head. 'Don't piffle to the children, Al. Those hens ran like whiteheads.' Nights on the road this would be, between shows and towns in some campground or pull-off, with the other vans and trucks and trailers of Binewski's Carnival Fabulon ranged up around us, safe in our portable village. After supper, sitting with full bellies in the lamp glow, we Binewskis were supposed to read and study. But if it rained the story mood would sneak up on Papa. The hiss and tick on the metal of our big living van distracted him from his papers. Rain on a show night was catastrophe. Rain on the road meant talk, which, for Papa, was pure pleasure. 'It's a shame and a pity, Lil,' he'd say, 'that these offspring of yours should only know the slumming summer geeks from Yale.' 'Princeton, dear,' Mama would correct him mildly. 'Randall will be a sophomore this fall. I believe he's our first Princeton boy.' We children would sense our story slipping away to trivia. Arty would nudge me and I'd pipe up with, 'Tell about the time when Mama was the geek!' and Arty and Elly and Iphy and Chick would all slide into line with me on the floor between Papa's chair and Mama. Mama would pretend to be fascinated by her sewing and Papa would tweak his swooping mustache and vibrate his tangled eyebrows, pretending reluctance. 'WellIll . . .' he'd begin, 'it was a long time ago . . .' 'Before we were born!' 'Before . . .' he'd proclaim, waving an arm in his grandest ringmaster style, 'before I even dreamed you, my dreamlets!' 'I was still Lillian Hinchcliff in those days,' mused Mama. 'And when your father spoke to me, which was seldom and reluctantly, he called me "Miss." ' 'Miss!' we would giggle. Papa would whisper to us loudly, as though Mama couldn't hear, 'Terrified! I was so smitten I'd stutter when I tried to talk to her. "M-M-M-Miss . . ." I'd say.' We'd giggle helplessly at the idea of Papa, the GREAT TALKER, so flummoxed. 'I, of course, addressed your father as Mister Binewski.

THE MEETING" "Scant rain had fallen and the summer sun Had scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn, That August nightfall, as I crossed the down Work-weary, half in dream. Beside a fence Skirting a penning’s edge, an old man waited Motionless in the mist, with downcast head And clothing weather-worn. I asked his name And why he lingered at so lonely a place. “I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasons I roamed these windswept downlands with my flock. No fences barred our progress and we’d travel Wherever the bite grew deep. In summer drought I’d climb from flower-banked combe to barrow’d hill-top To find a missing straggler or set snares By wood or turmon-patch. In gales of March I’d crouch nightlong tending my suckling lambs. “I was a ploughman, too. Year upon year I trudged half-doubled, hands clenched to my shafts, Guiding my turning furrow. Overhead, Cloud-patterns built and faded, many a song Of lark and pewit melodied my toil. I durst not pause to heed them, rising at dawn To groom and dress my team: by daylight’s end My boots hung heavy, clodded with chalk and flint. “And then I was a carter. With my skill I built the reeded dew-pond, sliced out hay From the dense-matted rick. At harvest time, My wain piled high with sheaves, I urged the horses Back to the master’s barn with shouts and curses Before the scurrying storm. Through sunlit days On this same slope where you now stand, my friend, I stood till dusk scything the poppied fields. “My cob-built home has crumbled. Hereabouts Few folk remember me: and though you stare Till time’s conclusion you’ll not glimpse me striding The broad, bare down with flock or toiling team. Yet in this landscape still my spirit lingers: Down the long bottom where the tractors rumble, On the steep hanging where wild grasses murmur, In the sparse covert where the dog-fox patters.” My comrade turned aside. From the damp sward Drifted a scent of melilot and thyme; From far across the down a barn owl shouted, Circling the silence of that summer evening: But in an instant, as I stepped towards him Striving to view his face, his contour altered. Before me, in the vaporous gloaming, stood Nothing of flesh, only a post of wood.

That week—the week of the rain—was one of my dad’s bad times. So I went out to the site a lot. One day, I was just picking around one of the foundations. It was all cinder block and pits; hardly any of the building had actually gotten done. And then I saw this little box. A shoe box.” She sucks in a breath, and even in the dark I see her tense. The rest of her story comes out in a rush: “Someone must have left it there, wedged in the space underneath a part of the foundation. Except the rain was so bad it had caused a miniature mudslide. The box had rolled out into the open. I don’t know why I decided to look inside. It was filthy. I thought I might find a pair of shoes, maybe some jewelry.” I know, now, where the story is going. I am walking toward the muddy box alongside her; I am lifting the water-warped cover. The horror and disgust is a mud too: It is rising, black and choking, inside of me. Raven’s voice drops to a whisper. “She was wrapped in a blanket. A blue blanket with yellow lambs on it. She wasn’t breathing. I—I thought she was dead. She was … she was blue. Her skin, her nails, her lips, her fingers. Her fingers were so small.” The mud is in my throat. I can’t breathe. “I don’t know what made me try to revive her. I think I must have gone a little crazy. I was working as a junior lifeguard that summer, so I’d been certified in CPR. I’d never had to do it, though. And she was so tiny—probably a week, maybe two weeks old. But it worked. I’ll never forget how I felt when she took a breath, and all that color came rushing into her skin. It was like the whole world had split open. And everything I’d felt was missing—all that feeling and color—all of it came to me with her first breath. I called her Blue so I would always remember that moment, and so I would never regret.

before he went back to helping the boy. Missing from the Warrior tent were Kalona and Aurox. For obvious reasons, Thanatos had decided the Tulsa community wasn’t ready to meet either of them. I agreed with her. I wasn’t ready for … I mentally shook myself. No, I wasn’t going to think about the Aurox/Heath situation now. Instead I turned my attention to the second of the big tents. Lenobia was there, keeping a sharp eye on the people who clustered like buzzing bees around Mujaji and the big Percheron mare, Bonnie. Travis was with her. Travis was always with her, which made my heart feel good. It was awesome to see Lenobia in love. The Horse Mistress was like a bright, shining beacon of joy, and with all the Darkness I’d seen lately, that was rain in my desert. “Oh, for shit’s sake, where did I put my wine? Has anyone seen my Queenies cup? As the bumpkin reminded me, my parents are here somewhere, and I’m going to need fortification by the time they circle around and find me.” Aphrodite was muttering and pawing through the boxes of unsold cookies, searching for the big purple plastic cup I’d seen her drinking from earlier. “You have wine in that Queenies to go cup?” Stevie Rae was shaking her head at Aphrodite. “And you’ve been drinkin’ it through a straw?” Shaunee joined Stevie Rae in a head shake. “Isn’t that nasty?” “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Aphrodite quipped. “There are too many nuns lurking around to drink openly without hearing a boring lecture.” Aphrodite cut her eyes to the right of us where Street Cats had set up a half-moon display of cages filled with adoptable cats and bins of catnip-filled toys for sale. The Street Cats had their own miniature version of the silver and white tents, and I could see Damien sitting inside busily handling the cash register, but except for him, running every aspect of the feline area were the habit-wearing Benedictine nuns who had made Street Cats their own. One of the nuns looked my way and I waved and grinned at the Abbess. Sister Mary Angela waved back before returning to the conversation she was having with a family who were obviously falling in love with a cute white cat that looked like a giant cottonball. “Aphrodite, the nuns are cool,” I reminded her. “And they look too busy to pay any attention to you,” Stevie Rae said. “Imagine that—you may not be the center of everyone’s attention,” Shaylin said with mock surprise. Stevie Rae covered her giggle with a cough. Before Aphrodite could say something hateful, Grandma limped up to us. Other than the limp and being pale, Grandma looked healthy and happy. It had only been a little over a week since Neferet had kidnapped and tried to kill her, but she’d recovered with amazing quickness. Thanatos had told us that was because she was in unusually good shape for a woman of her age. I knew it was because of something else—something we both shared—a special bond with a goddess who believed in giving her children free choice, along with gifting them with special abilities. Grandma was beloved of the Great Mother,