Weathering

for Jim* Equinox is past, yet the wind blows cold. From a veranda swing he watches pansies, daisies, snapdragons color-up his garden; Smoky Mountains so far distant he cannot see. He hears the eastbound train echo warning. Rain tomorrow. *My late husband was born in the hills of North Carolina. Among his people was a belief that when the air was so calm and clear that the sound of the whistle of a train was amplified and echoed loudly, the sound was a harbinger of rain. In 1970 Jim moved from North Carolina to SW Washington state. He lived there until his death in 2011, but once in a while he became homesick for his home in the Great Smoky Mountains.