Remainders of the deluge
now rest in the pockmarks and potholes
of backroad pavement,
as though waiting to rouse itself once more,
hoping it has just enough mischevious vigor
to again climb telephone poles and knock over fences.

But the dawn just now touching the hilltops is a clear one,
the rain having washed the sky of its foreboding
and the Doppler radar is giving a dry weekend.
Already, the sky is offering its bouquets of many colors
with promises, promises that this will never happen again. 

In the still low light, 
the puddles, thick with clay and silt,
seem impossibly rich, milky, 
able to sustain the hungry day
just now waking.