A cold front crawls toward the state, stirring up a thin soup of slow clouds on the horizon at 3 a.m., with ominous flashes that pop from south to north and back again like a line of '40s newspaper photographers. Above, the outstretched arm of our Milky Way adds its own speckled stripe to the already glittering black sky. But when will it start to rain? The temperature, thankfully, has dropped 15 degrees from yesterday and should drop another 15 by tomorrow. New snow on the distant mountains, too distant to know that by sight, may stay the winter--a welcome guest. Looking to the east, soybean fields already deconstructed by sturdy combines look like a striped brown rug on the floor of the earth. The sky at dawn is a wall with faded paint, crumbling white and gray, in need of a fresh coat. The wind continues, though; an endless white noise combs through the trees.

Yesterday, big--way-too-big--suburban houses built on this backdrop of farm country made me lean toward hating my fellow man; luckily they are impermanent, no matter how much destruction and stupidity they represent, the McMansions and their owners, too, will be whisked away some day, either by violent storm or by drifting, casual, indifferent weather.

Ah. Just now the first crack of thunder.