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It Is Raining and a line of light is just beginning to open the lid of the horizon. Somebody leans out an upstairs window and shouts, “Thanks for the beer. Write when you get work.” A car coughs, starts, moves down the street avoiding the deeper puddles stippled with rain. It passes a dog in a doorway, his tail curled carefully around his delicate feet. It is raining in Coblenz and in Buda and in Pest. It is raining on the top and bottom of the world. It is raining in Argentina. The bank vaults are leaking. The German certificates of deposit are beginning to mold. It is raining on the gleaming seats of hundreds of parked bicycles. It is raining for those who plan to go out and for those who plan to stay in. It is raining quietly, the rain of forever, the rain of good-bye, the rain of tomorrow. It is raining on horses who stand on three feet in wet fields and speak the language of every country. 3 It is raining on the mansion on the hill with one small light from the kitchen where the cook has a toothache and cannot sleep. She sits playing solitaire, looking around the empty room quickly, and cheating. It is raining on the glistening tailings from exhausted mines and on little ghost towns in the mountains. It is raining on the old house in the city far away where we once lived another life. It is raining wherever you are and wherever I am and wherever we are going and have been. It is raining on the tombstones, on the flat stones and the upright stones. It is raining into the open graves that are waiting. It is raining on history, on the battlefields of long-lost wars and the bronze statues of forgotten heroes. It is raining on Alcatraz, in the fog, where mushrooms are growing under steel bunks. It is raining on millions of pale yellow butterflies far out at sea, migrating like angels from one world to another. 4 ...

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