Grey rain, falling in slants, sounding a quiet and steady roar against the gravel. Up through the trees are clouds, indistinct and sullen. The field is brown and wet. Pools of chilled water collect in the hollows, undisturbed amid the grass. The path to the woods is dark as it enters the cedar grove. The great maple stands bent and broken, layered with a mantel of green ferns that grow up past the burls. I stand inside the hollow of the tree, watching water drip from leaf to leaf, then hanging for a moment, then falling, making a small splash off a broken blade of grass.

The path becomes muddy as it climbs up a small incline, then turning left down an old logging road. On the right, half-hidden by leafless branches and the dead leaves of last year's blackberries, is a large stump--six or seven feet across and fifteen feet high--a virgin timber cut down 45 years before. It now stands decaying with a young cedar growing from the top. Past the blackberry brambles, the sound of rushing water floats up from below. The deep scent of wet cedar and fir and rain-drenched earth mingles with the mist hovering amid the tops of the smaller trees.

I sit on the cedar bench above the creek, listening to the gurgling of the brook as it tumbles over a small fall, and to the more distant roar of the creek as it rushes through a narrow channel into the deep--and to the rain. We used to walk here together, Dad and me. Grey rain, falling in slants, sounding a quiet and steady roar against my memories.

© 2022 by Grant Christensen. "Freely you have received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8b NIV) You are free to share--copy and redistribute in any medium or format--as long as you don't change the content and don't use commercially without permission of the author or author's family.