The storm looms

throwing electric darts

cloud-skimming

flowing into alleys like canyons

leaving water behind

to trace the contours of the earth.

 

I look up, eyes on the heavens

peering at the backlit thunderheads

a shimmering grey

the rest of the sky like the inside of a pearl.

 

Try to stand tall and steady as I look up

and as the sky

swells and lurches

but motion sickness sets in.

No matter.

 

I rediscover a poetic truth:

we live under an atmospheric sea

that whispers, in a desert, there is no greater love than rain.

 

And I remember a line or two,

“o, madly the sea pushes on the land / with love, with love.”