專四晨讀美文：Glories of the Storm

Glories of the Storm
It begins when a feeling of stillness
creeps into my consciousness.
Everything has suddenly gone quiet.
Birds do not chirp. Leaves do not rustle.
Insects do not sing.
The air that has been hot all day becomes heavy.
It hangs over the trees,
presses the heads of the flowers to the ground,
sits on my shoulders.
With a vague feeling of uneasiness I move to the window.
There, in the west, lies the answer-
cloud has piled on cloud
to form a ridge of mammoth white towers,
rearing against blue sky.
Their piercing whiteness is of brief duration.
Soon the marshmallow rims flatten to anvil tops,
and the clouds reveal their darker nature.
They impose themselves before the late-afternoon sun,
and the day darkens early.
Then a gust of wind whips the dust along the road,
chill warning of what is to come.
In the house a door shuts with a bang,
curtains billow into the room.
I rush to close the windows, empty the clothesline,
secure the patio furnishings.
Thunder begins to grumble in the distance.
The first drops of rain are huge.
They split into the dust
and imprint the windows with individual signatures.
They plink on the vent pipe, and plunk on the patio roof.
Leaves shudder under their weight before rebounding,
and the sidewalk wears a coat of shiny spots.
The rhythm accelerates;
plink follows plunk faster and faster
until the sound is a roll of drums
and the individual drops become an army
marching over fields and rooftops.
Now the first bolt of lightening stabs the earth.
It is heaven's exclamation point.
The storm is here!
In spite of myself, I jump at the following crack of thunder.
It rattles the windowpane
and sends the dog scratching to get under the bed.
The next bolt is even closer.
It raises the hair on the back of my neck,
and I take an involuntary step away from the window.
The rain now becomes a torrent,
flung capriciously by a rising wind.
Together they batter the trees and level the grasses.
Water streams off roofs and out of rain spouts.
It pounds against the window
in such a steady wash that I am sightless.
There is only water. How can so much fall so fast?
How could the clouds have supported this vast weight?
How ran the earth endure beneath it?