A little moment

The eastern sky is brooding again, boiling with thick, heavy clouds in layers of blue and gray so deep they almost look black. But something disrupts the monologue, and sun spills gold from the west in a sudden flash of brilliance, silhouetting bright lime-green trees and gleaming tan houses against an apocalyptic backdrop of midnight violet.

I smell rain.

I pull open the glass, eager for a glimpse of the sun, shining from one mutinous break in the clouds to the west. The sky is playful aqua there, robin's egg blue, and the tips of the clouds shine white, pearl, soft gray.

The moment passes, and shadows descend like a huge, black crow lighting on a tree branch, slowly, softly, resolutely.

The trees turn from lime to deep emerald, and the rows of houses and rooftops begin to turn deep gray, one by one by one, until only a ribbon of pale, distant sky separates dark land from dark clouds.

I strain my eyes to the west.

Somewhere, against distant mountain slopes, the sun is dancing in the pines, lighting clouds in beautiful, dappled peach and eggshell white with misty edges.

A flock of crows flies westward, dodging power lines, calling back and forth with rough, throaty calls.

Perhaps they, too, miss the sun