Thoroughfare
Passing Marana I covet a farmstand watermelon
alongside the frontage road
they are lined up on a board, all sizes
green rinds filled with quaint black seeds
summer's last bursting bounty
large white sugar spots
I glance them as they glide by at 75.
The storms between me and the mountains
mediated by miles and mechanization
tresses falling from the sky, not virga
but lavishing from the clouds
flinging themselves passionately to earth
but in slow motion
savoring the seduction
they offer all of themselves
sweetly, generously they
give and give.
The generosity of the storms
pulls me toward them,
their perfect dark clarity
their turbulence beckons from afar
water, everywhere, falling from nowhere, lovely
I think, to lose myself within them
like the thirsty desert and
thieving farmland, to absorb
their flood of what is good.
These meditations are punctuated by
thrills of lightning, light not muffled within the heavens
but bright white against the deep gray of the storms
immediate
sudden
gone
possibly fictional
a sideways glance from a would-be lover
from an unpredictable corner
leaving only a longing
possibly another
later
again.
But I am on the thoroughfare. There are no side streets
no intersections to carry me there.
I drive at seventy-five
toward home
and then, after one long straight curve,
suddenly,
past acres of industry
and the suburbs
there it is.
I find that the storm is home
Hail, wind and water
awaiting my return
offering up all its bounty
within sheets of sudden rain.
Poet's Muy-Post Post-script: This poem is dedicated to my husband. As I was driving, watching these unbelievably intense and visually incredible thunderstorms sweep across the desert, I thought about how in life, sometimes you yearn for something you have already won... or earned... or coaxed into being, or whatever. And sometimes you don't even allow yourself to realize you've asked for it, and yet in that strange sort of yearning yet not-quite-daring to ask you've already moved the universe to grant you what you need.
Passing Marana I covet a farmstand watermelon
alongside the frontage road
they are lined up on a board, all sizes
green rinds filled with quaint black seeds
summer's last bursting bounty
large white sugar spots
I glance them as they glide by at 75.
The storms between me and the mountains
mediated by miles and mechanization
tresses falling from the sky, not virga
but lavishing from the clouds
flinging themselves passionately to earth
but in slow motion
savoring the seduction
they offer all of themselves
sweetly, generously they
give and give.
The generosity of the storms
pulls me toward them,
their perfect dark clarity
their turbulence beckons from afar
water, everywhere, falling from nowhere, lovely
I think, to lose myself within them
like the thirsty desert and
thieving farmland, to absorb
their flood of what is good.
These meditations are punctuated by
thrills of lightning, light not muffled within the heavens
but bright white against the deep gray of the storms
immediate
sudden
gone
possibly fictional
a sideways glance from a would-be lover
from an unpredictable corner
leaving only a longing
possibly another
later
again.
But I am on the thoroughfare. There are no side streets
no intersections to carry me there.
I drive at seventy-five
toward home
and then, after one long straight curve,
suddenly,
past acres of industry
and the suburbs
there it is.
I find that the storm is home
Hail, wind and water
awaiting my return
offering up all its bounty
within sheets of sudden rain.
Poet's Muy-Post Post-script: This poem is dedicated to my husband. As I was driving, watching these unbelievably intense and visually incredible thunderstorms sweep across the desert, I thought about how in life, sometimes you yearn for something you have already won... or earned... or coaxed into being, or whatever. And sometimes you don't even allow yourself to realize you've asked for it, and yet in that strange sort of yearning yet not-quite-daring to ask you've already moved the universe to grant you what you need.
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