STORM WARNING 
The air takes on a certain edge--
the distinctive tinge of fine dry dust
sprinkled lightly before the rush of southwest wind--
as we stand here, dry still on this south-fronting porch,
faces lifted slightly in anticipation
in this fragrant surge, this breeze portending rain.
Hot: this day lies fading, sloping thick and heavy
down the western horizon, tracking the weary sun
even as a wedge of clouds swells up from the south.
We wait, pausing like the late bathing cardinals
that cool in the final fan of sprinkler-spray
before we shut it off, certain now
the soaking rains will come, will come.
The sky darkens slowly from the east,
abruptly from the southwest, rumbling.
The wind has gone: the leaves hang limp and soundless
like pennants in the humid air that wraps them, clinging.
And the wind rises again, after the pause.
The birds move off swiftly: at once
the yard is empty, the street silent
but for the sound of this straight, high wind
building above the trees--
building where our aging maples reach,
like the blighted elms that line the stretch,
for the chill relief impending from the dark:
this high and driving rain coming on,
coming in hard from the south.
Reprinted with permission
from Instruments of the Bones
Copyright ©
by Stephen C. Behrendt
