The missing tooth in the mouth of the rider who passed me at the rock garden. He didn’t clear it either, but “life goes on,” he said. He was wearing a blaze orange vest, unzipped, flapping at his sides as he pedaled away.
This same rider on the trail, riding up “Gravity Hill.” The spring green sloping ridge was backed by a wall of steel blue rain clouds. The orange vest a vivid, slow-moving dot against the sky.
A bluebird sitting on the trail, next to a gray rock, all in shadow. Flown away before I got a second look.
Darkening skies, raindrop dots on my blue sleeves, and then hammering rain. I looked south and saw that I was inside the cloud, with a sunlit city beyond. And then I was through the cloud and it was over.
Evidence of the rain burst as darkened rocks, slippery roots, soaked shoes, the glistening windshield back at the trailhead.
