The porch is full of rain. It’s a back porch, with a roof that leaks some, but the view of the marsh grass makes sitting out there worthwhile. I don’t sit out there when it rains, though. I just watch the water pool on the boards from inside the house, through the screen door. I can smell the rain on the breeze and I like it because it’s a simple smell. Basic, something I can’t ever remember not knowing.

When the rain stops I move back out onto the porch. I bring a small folding chair with me, the one I usually forget to bring in. I hear crickets and frogs and watch the clouds break in two. The gray clouds head north, white ones south. The sun sets on the marsh behind the treeline that rings the whole property. The outline along the tops of those trees turns black and then I can’t make them out anymore as the night comes in. I can still make out the edge of the porch and the two wooden Adirondack chairs down on the grass that  my brother made for me in 1988. And I can also see the shape of an old brick barbecue which was here when I moved in but that I never used. The masonry is tired, worn out, too much weather. It’s crumbling and I let it crumble. With every storm a brick falls crooked onto a pile of bricks beneath it. It gets darker still and I lose sight of everything by the time the fireflies come out. I can only see the dim signal choreography out of the corner of my eyes. I try to follow their flight paths for a while but for fireflies there are no straight lines.