Wall and Pine: The Rain

Now the god of rainy August hangs his mask among the city’s spires and balustrades and stone clocktowers half-effaced in clouds. On Park the first reflecting pool dims with a thousand smelted-silver circle-rims, while west on Fifth a modiste scatters leaves in fall vitrines, and felt-browed mannequins resign the world with gestures of disdain. Now in the Cloister’s high parterres the rain floods copper gutterings, boxwood, terraced urns and mottoes. “The weather turns.” Clamped to their pier, the smiling Gaul, the murderer Clotaire, and Isaiah, green-throned, water-cowled, exchange their fine-lit ironies for rotes of pain.