“There is a difference if we see something
with a pencil in our hand or without one.”

Paul Valery
French poet
(1871 – 1945)

One summer afternoon in 1955, Denton, Montana,
I walked down a wet sidewalk smelling of recent rain,
to buy a pen and a notebook at Mr. Graham’s drugstore
to make notes on my everyday life.

I walked home on the sun drying sidewalk,
the aroma of fresh rain fading in memory.

The sweet aroma of rain,
the first entry in my book.