Rainstorm at Stone Mountain

 We walked in the woods south of Stone Mountain, knowing we might get wet, and we did.

Kind-of-opposites attract: The Wise Woman was covered in rain gear. I was in an old T-shirt and shorts, clothes that couldn't be hurt by water.

But that’s just different styles. We both wanted to hear the sound of rain on the forest canopy.

In the downpour, we walked fast, hoping to get to a shelter on the trail. In our speed, we frightened two deer. Tails up, they flew over a brush pile and were gone. The rain stopped just before we reached the shelter.

You can smell a beech forest in the rain. The world seems to be 15 minutes old.

The last of the old leaves on the beeches went a month ago. The new leaves are intensely green without being yellow. They are soft. The old leaves are still deep on the forest floor. The supple new leaves shush the rain, and the brittle old leaves crackle.

The little creek that runs from the west got a bit muddy in the storm. The rills coming off the mountain were torrents. You could hear the next crossing before you could see it.