KNOWLEDGE AS LIQUID

Last night around 4 am I was awakened by an unusually strong, oddly constant wind. Wind is never that constant, it waxes and wanes like everything else does. That intense constancy puzzled what there was of my intelligence. As my mind threw a few more sleepwebs off, I went through the usual fuzzy strong-night-wind routine: had I left anything outside that might blow over or away? (We’ve lost a number of potted plants, tarps and firewood covers over the years.) At once I realized I had left the tall Madagascar jasmine sitting sunward in its brand-new pot on the deck railing above the perilous rocks that edge the herbs.

Wincing for the imminent crash, at about one-third IQ I got out of bed and stumbled downstairs in the hissing dark (turning the lights on makes it harder to get back to sleep), opened the door to the garden and stepped out to get the plant. But as it turned out there was no intense and constant wind; rather, there was a very intense and large-dropped rain, that now fell equally upon me as upon all the land around. By the time I’d lugged the potted jasmine to the safety it did not after all require, my IQ had been restored to peak tremolo by the massive icy-cold 4 am shower I’d just been given. Dripping with new knowledge regarding the craftiness of rain, I went back to bed shivering and warming, awaiting dreams of my childhood visit to Niagara Falls.