Storm!

 After that discouraging drought, it did rain! And although it washed away some of the plants I'd just set in that morning, the main effect was a glad reception from plants and people alike. The world was moist again, and wilted leaves stiffened and brightened up, seeds that had been lying in the ground for weeks finally had a chance to germinate, and the air was fresh and vibrant. One inch can make a big difference. And now, just a few days later, it wouldn't hurt if it rained again. We'll be ready!

I love storms. It must be an energy thing. If I were a few years younger, I could well be a storm chaser following tornadoes. A tornado hit our farm when I was 10 or 11. It blew down buildings all around the house, as well as huge trees., though the house itself was hardly touched. We were in the center of the storm, the eye, and we in the house were spared. Our big red historic cow barn was twisted to rubble as the 5 of us in the family were huddled in the basement, the wind roaring outside, water coming through the stone walls. My dad needed to look out and he climbed the stairs from the basement to the window in the outside door, with my mom calling, "Alfred, come back! It's too dangerous!" But he wanted to see what was happening to his beloved farm, and he saw the cow barn go down. I remember him saying quietly, "There goes the barn..." He must have been feeling awfully sad, devastated maybe. On the other hand, my young self was only excited. I couldn't believe the luck which gave me a real tornado at my home! (Witness the short-sightedness of youth....) When the storm had passed, I raced upstairs and found that the phone still worked (amazing). It was an old crank phone. Our ring was a long and three shorts. Other people on the party line had other rings. And when you wanted to call someone not on your party line, you called "Central" with one long ring. That's what I did. I called my school girlfriends and told them what happened. And then I looked out the south window and there was a long line of cars slowly driving by our place, seeing the damage. Our farm was the only one hit that time, and it was a spectacle. I remember my mom wondering why no one stopped and offered to help. 

The storm here a few days ago was not as dramatic, and I was inside enjoying a reflexology treatment when it happened, so didn't even see it! I did sit out in a storm while I was living in the country, just 3 years ago, and I wrote this poem about it:

At Dawn

Pulled from bed by the sound of waving treetops,

   I make my way down the long staircase,

   across the study, and out into the dawn,

   moving from stillness to an outside world electric with movement.

I sit on the top step of the south porch,

   letting the cool moist air wash over me.

   A regiment of clouds approaches from the west,

   full of the promise of something significant,

   a mixture of blacks and grays, morphing into rounded shapes,

   and then stretching thin and long as the wind carries them on.

Wrapped in the stillness of an observer,

   I watch small birds soar high above the trees and then swoop down, 

   moved to ecstatic flight by the same tingling expectancy that I feel: 

   Storm  is coming.

And then it is here,

   a roar of wind, trees bending impossibly low,

   the first drops of rain coming fast on a diagonal,

   slapping hard against my face.

Still sitting on the porch step,

   but no longer an observer,

   I am pulled from quiet separateness into a wild wholeness.

   I smile large with the joy of it,

   filled with gratitude for this day’s beginning.