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Rain
Smells like blessing. Relief
Or like diluted tears collected,
recycled, one cloud at a time.
Like the muggy sweat in an
infant's hair, the faint perspir-
ation on a lover's brow after
making love; the laundry hung
out to dry-- a mix of bleach and
bluing, the clean smell of tar
and asphalt on a drenched city
street whose odor is only present
when it rains. The dank, dense
smell of a wooded path scented
with sweet clover, pine needles,
and rotting bark. Like nostrils
filled with the first lake plunge
before algae and skunkweed
scum the water. Rain smells
like the color green, is the flavor
of hope, is the clear blood of the
earth, is the history of people, is
the story of this man and this
woman together, sharing one
umbrella.
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