Two Suns

It rained this afternoon, not much, but enough to cover the street and cause the tires to slush up water in fine misty sheets as the cars passed, a sound that is not without its own peaceful merit. Duncan and I walked an hour after the clouds were swept away to the east, dark and low with lightning just barely visible even in the daylight. The sidewalks had just started to dry around their edges when we ventured to the park. The sun carved a place for itself between the mountains and a new row of clouds that had risen over the rounded tops of the foothills, shining a concentrated layer of gold across the city and into our eyes. The park was vast and empty and strange for a Sunday afternoon, as silent as it gets only after the dark has risen and even the late night Frisbee players have faded into the shadows. There was no tug on Duncan's leash and we walked side by side without haste or destination, comfortable with the laziness of our steps, not caring where we went or how long it took to get there, glad only to be out in the cool, rain-scented air together. Climbing the hill below the memorial, following the path up, with the sun in our faces, the sidewalk before us glowed brilliantly, as radiantly as though there were two suns, one setting from above, one reflected on the wet walk and rising up from below. Through the parking lot at the top of the hill and across the wet grass above the amphitheater, we stood and looked down on the lake. The trees and tall willows along the shore, even the foothills and the city along their base, were black as we gazed into the sun and its reflected twin, moving together at the same pace along the same path, never to meet but always lighting the other's way into the horizon. We stood for a long while watching their progress and as the sun, our sun, the one above, met the black line of the mountain silhouettes, I strained my ears for the sound of the hiss as it extinguished against the damp horizon. When it did not come we turned and walked another long and lazy route home.