The How of the Storms

Childhood Summers

It couldn’t just rain in Willcox— 

a mass of grit and silt blown from the Playa

had to fill the air, teasing everyone

with the odor of wet dirt.

How odd that we could say it smelled good

while tons of the stuff blew

through town at forty miles an hour.

The onerous grit infiltrated

windows and doors,

adhered to our teeth,

filled our noses and ears,

and coated our game boards with an annoying 

layer of silt.

The wind howled like

the O’Connor’s blood hounds released for the hunt;

barb’ wire fences glowed and crackled with static electricity.

Lightning, as if hammered off Thor’s anvil, 

careened straight down through a furious sky, 

crashing into Earth in a blinding flash,

letting loose window rattling thunder,

sometimes so close we ducked. 

Then it would rain.

From: After All the Years of Gravity

Unpub. MS p. 26