The terse rubbled roof,
which so often stayed silent,
began one night
to whisper, to hum
a rhythm, a cadence
such like that of sand shakers under simple songs,
and it continued until it stumbled into a hiss—
one pitched off and missed
the destination of pleasant and
struck the tempered toll of tenor—
but rain should be too soon as it was still summer,
when trees ought to breathe and shine ought to seethe,
yet feckless was the weather and there it remained—
one summer’s night
it began to rain.
As co-leader of the Writer's Workshop club at my school, I came up with a prompt for my peers: "Write a story in a single sentence"—and this was the result.