dropped my phone off to get the screen replaced, and as i walked out of the store with empty pocket, my city vanished. in its place great sighing fields of barley spread from the shop in every direction. to the east, mile-high storm clouds loomed; to the west a mighty jury of peaks looked on, somber and venerable.

i felt the low echoes of thunder before i heard them, watched my skin respond to the static electricity in the air. but lightning didn't strike, and when the rain came it came in cold, calm sheets. as the grey chased the blue from the sky, i stood, now cell-phoneless, and turned my face to the heavens.

§

i walked west. the heavy rains collected into creeks aside my path, and as i hopped over a tributary or two i smiled to myself, bemused at the small joyfulness of the act. the storm and i went hand-in-hand; i watched his great symphonies composed & revised as he pulled dust from the air, raised the scent of damp soil from the earth.

no texts, no emails would come. i would walk free of the brusque shoving of notifications, the infinite playlists, the Sisyphean scrolling. today i would inhale the many-colored atmosphere and wordlessly describe its scents to myself. today i only move with care, watching my step over branches, stones and soil.

when i reached the foothills of the mountains, a minor range stood afore me like a gatekeeper, clad in ponderosa pine and scrub oak, stern and regal even beneath the dark clouds and downpour. a few miles down there was a break in the hills, but instead i began to climb. it wasn't asked of me, and it was.

the rain subsided some, without fanfare as i stepped up the hill. gazing not to my feet but to the summit, i put my palms to the soft mulch of discarded pine needles, the lichenous rocks, to find my footing. i became aware of the cold settling into the fabric of my clothes as the rain's percussion gave way to bowed breeze.

§

the storm, gentle as it had been, became gentler still, and as i neared the top, final vestiges of rain fell from clouds that could not be seen. the sky beyond the storm was in its metamorphic impromptu, exchanging day for night ex tempore, one million million colors between blue, and bluer still.

the sky worked her way down the keys into deeper octaves of blue, the horizon — mountains cast in shadow beyond my minor foothill — ignited in the halo of sunset. the damp ground exhaled as i did, releasing mists to the world in a contented sigh, rising patiently through the trees.

i felt the sigh slip away from me, borrowed by another breeze sweeping through the pines above the valley. i let my wild life become wildlife; i left words behind on that hill, content to make no longer a sound but that quiet exhalation with the wind —

can you hear me now?