storm

Something in the night kept me from bed
an event, hanging in the distance, electrified
the still summer sky. Wide awake, despite the complaints of my exhausted body
only then did I realize fully the freedom of summer, to do anything I wanted,
the boundless sun powering my veins with
raw energy I never felt in winter,
the need to act, to move, to be in motion.
But the charged pause held me too, to wait, part of the calm, and it came.
the reason I was still awake at 2 am.

Storms are the most exciting thing that can happen
No one can stop them, and everyone, even important people
scurry inside, out of the rain.
The danger, the thrill of lightning in the air
fries all superficiality and manufacture and everything is
nature, man just another beast, cowering
in awe and fear of inevitable, majestic Nature.

The vanguard was a blast of warm wind,
rippling in the grass and tossing treetops
to show the silver underbellies of the leaves.
It rushed and trilled just beyond my window
and I pushed up the screen and stuck
my head out, letting the wind make my hair
a brown tangle as I tried to breathe in
the vitality of the tempest,
only ducking my head back in once the
tangles turned to heavy, damp ropes
and the rain came lashing down
shifting to slant through my window
at just the right angle so I had
to shut out the cooling breeze.
But then the light show began
tremendous cracks following
the blue blazes lighting the whole
familiar scene until long after
I could peer nearsightedly through
the fogging glass, and long after
my body shut down, propped against
a mound of pillows beneath the sill,
and the lightning played inside my eyelids
the rain washed through my dream
as I drifted through a sea of raindrops.