Rain and leaf stencils in San Francisco

Ever since I went back to Fort Funston and spent some hours in a late afternoon's mist and an early evening's fire-lit quietude, I've been ready for the rain.

At the end of a long day of classes and meetings, on my way back home, I walked up Dolores Street in the light rain and smiled. Up the hill from 18th Street to my block were the haiku moments I had been missing in my life and more, all within a three-block walk.

The negative-space trace of trees on the concrete made from rain falling between leaves.
Leaves so yellow they seem to insist on their color even lying still on the gray sidewalk in the dark.

I have been in this city long enough to know that several of these leaves will be stepped on with just enough force, just enough times, by just enough people, at just the right pace, and the rain will cease and the sun will come out from behind the clouds for just long enough that the concrete sidewalk will be stenciled with dry fallen leaves for a couple of days.