Ceremonial

After dark, when the woods turn back into a forest, go stand under an umbrella & let your prim column of not-rain become as anonymous as the others. Count the drips until you lose track of everything else. Inhale the fertile aroma of log-rot & truffle as if it were the freshest tea.

Ignore the lightning flash, what it does to the ground: a stark here-&-now of sticks & leaves into which it no longer seems possible to sink. Raise your face to the false vault of ribs.