Dear Emily Dickinson,

     Rarely do I glimpse him. Each time, the precondition seems to be: a mitigating rain. I mean a rain that cannot quite bring itself to surge, or stop. This is a rain that mildly self-diminishes. There can be no resentment of it.

     The rat squats in the rain with aplomb in broad daylight, not far from foot-traffic. From among the weeds and grasses he picks and chooses only the most succulent small greens. He bites them off, or tugs them out, and then he eats them.

     He can run. If I move too near, too fast, he goes galumphing, at a bouncing gait, aiming lackadaisically toward the pond's edge. But unless I do the rash thing, he is perfectly content to sit and...