birds singing at night

for weeks now,
i have prayed for rain:
enough to wash the streets
and clear my eyes,
my red, blearied eyes.

today, a thunderstorm arose,
consuming the pollen
and heady summer weather.
riding its hem was crisp wind,
clotted up over the mountains,
at last sighing on my city.

the weather is
a cotton cable sweater
worn with shorts and sandals:
chill enough to give pause,
but welcome enough to bare skin.
it is the bird singing at night,
serenading me from the pear tree
in the ersatz day within darkness
of the apartment parking lot.

passionate rain, so long
in arriving, and so bittersweet
that i would have run out into it,
had there not been lightning.