Today when I stepped onto the porch, coffee in hand, to sit at my little patio table and savor both the caffeine surge and the newness of the morning, the whole world had stopped breathing.
A heavy cloud cover had been flung across the sky, rising, like the snap of a clean sheet arrested at its highest point before settling over the mattress. The trees across the road seemed to crouch lower to the ground, and suspended in the solvent of gray air under gray sky drifted a waiting hush. Nothing moved. The only sound came from the traffic slinking past on the road, and as I sipped, the air grew heavy and the weeds in the yard trembled. The scent of water curled around my hair.
"It's gonna storm big," my neighbor Gordon called across the lawn.
"When?" I called back.
He pointed to the sky. "Any time now. Supposed to be real high winds too."
I glanced along the line cast by his gesturing finger. To the south a blackness had begun to spread, rippling over the lighter gray, the reaching of an incoming tide.
As I walked across the grass to the car, I felt the sinews of the earth tense, and I grinned at my own flicker of adrenaline as I heard, far off, the muscular shudder of amassing thunder.
10 comments:
I covet your storm...
There was even a weeeee bit of hail!
Then I also covet your hail.
Keep on coveting...it thunderstormed all night, with rolls of lightning flashes building up to silent finales brighter and more painful to the eye than daylight, followed by long low grumbles of thunder that lasted as long as ten seconds, shook the earth and set off the neighbors' car alarms...
It was BRILLIANT.
Yours sounds like a Perfect Storm. Now it's my turn to be green with envy.
California, for all its beauty and variety, is sadly lacking in frequent and majestic thunderstorms.
I've always sworn that, if I someday relocate to the eastern portion of these United States, I'd revive the archaic Sleeping Porch in the house I built and spend the stormy, furious nights sequestered there.
I guess I'd need a pony barn, too...
Oo and a mysterious, misunderstood neighbor named Boo Radley.
A sleeping porch has always sounded grand. I rest so much more deeply during thunderstorms, much as I'd like to be awake for their duration. To catch every wandering breeze, every water-soaked scent on the wind...wet woods, wet grass...wet pony...
Ah, the smell of wet, winged pony in the morning.
I hope it's nothing like wet dog...
My experience wrangling at church camp in high school taught me that wet horse smells quite delightful (but then, I love the smell of horses); and my adolescent experience with pet parakeets taught me that the smell of wet feathers is even better.
I'm assuming if you combine the two, wet winged pony must smell celestial, hopefully tinged a little bit with the smell of starlight.
Better than wet dog, at least, and, I'm guessing, much better than napalm.
I heard that I missed an awesome storm this weekend (I'm in Maryland this week). Count me as jealous too. I hope we get a good storm while I'm home; my parents have a great covered porch that is perfect for storm watching.
Mine's pretty awesome, too.
I hope you get that storm -- and that you're having a wonderful visit with your folks! (How nice for you to get away for a little while...I wish you much relaxation.)
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