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| view from the summit of Aldis Hill, St. Albans, VT |
What Are the Chances?
Twenty percent chance of rain hung low and purple
over the shoulders of mountains splashed with the last
of this year’s wash of autumn color.
On Aldis Hill, we took the Main Loop trail
hiking steadily up
through stands of white-bark birches
and flutter-of-orange maples
in a silence broken only
by a downy woodpecker’s hollow drumming.
At the summit, we stepped out from under trees
and twenty percent chance of rain had become a mosaic:
puffy white cumulus on a background of bright blue.
Across the valley, shafts of sunlight shone spotlights
on patches of red-orange-yellow trees.
Later, at Hathaway Point, we looked across Lake Champlain
and saw one hundred percent chance of rain headed our way:
one dark cloud with streaks of rain meeting the lake.
We could hear the rain on the lake
then in the trees
before we dashed for the porch at the ranger’s station.
When one hundred percent chance
was reduced to drips,
a honking V of geese
at least fifty strong
filled the sky
pointing
the way
south.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021
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