We were desperate to get out of the apartment,even that late in the day. Storms roved east, disillusioned gold miners headed back into the desert, and we rode under as far as the mountains until the pines were thick and the rain fell faucets between gapping lace work of needles.

Gray light deepened. Darkness crept down the ridges, grew in soft spaces amid the trees and covered the swollen creek its mad rushing- and the pool. The mist of the water fall raised its slow, cold heart to the rain.

We walked the paths along the creek and rain ran down our hooded coats. Cold undeniable forced us in. Squares of light opened out into the night and the fire touched our faces and our clothes- those that we finally shed to the floor to feel the waver of heat set free on skin. Did we finally know what we had been waiting to know all our lives? And now? When I shiver?