Thunderstorm

Devotion

I want to tell you something.

A memory surfaced this morning,
coming in through the western window,
as the sunlight that binds us
slowly consumed
the moonlight that hides us.

A long time ago,
I was out in the pasture,
standing in the fading summer light,
herd of horses far afield.

The anvil cloud in full electric bloom,
singing deep the distant vibrations—
the ones you can 

feel 

in your chest.

You know what I mean.

That night the air was still thick and hot
over the high country.

The sun sinking
like a sacred oath.

The charge of potential floating
over the tall grass, the cactus, 
the yucca and sage,

every creature 
above the ground, under the sky.
All of us together in the golden hour.

And the storm moved in,
and I did not blink.

Near a lone piece of darkened rock,
I saw lightning


          strike


                    twice.

Coyote

You know how headlights,
when you’re near a desert highway,
pan across material like a searchlight,
casting incoherent shadows
past whatever they happen to catch –

sage, cactus green and praying to the rain,
hitchhiker’s drugstore cowpuncher boots,
corrugated lean-to slumped up against the wire?

Well that isn’t happening just yet.

Coyote isn’t on the wander right now.

The sun is still walking, heading west,
knowing exactly where to go.

Daylight melts over dust and hardpan,
yellow, umber, ochre, neon hot pink.

Memory melts like daylight.

Those clouds, see. That’s what I mean.
Cirro… cumulo… cirronimbulus?

It rises, dark and thick in the gloaming.
It drinks the melted daylight.

A rush of cool air. Scattering of sand.
Silent stab of arced lightning.
One million volts in a terawatt cycle.

Thunderstorms drink memory like daylight.
They amplify.
They make ready for the night.

You should come tell me what you think.

Silence. Rumbling over the distance of the earth.

Silence.

Cumulonimbus. That’s it.

You’d have gotten that quicker.

Silence.

Scent of the dry before the wet.

Burning gold at the end of the sunwalk
underneath the dark tower.

There. Coyote’s on the wander. Hungry.

The semi-truck moves past
and headlights cast no shadows beyond a ghost.

Thirst.

Thunder.

Hunger.

Arclight.

Silence.