Thunderstorms

I always used to be fascinated--though frightened--by thunderstorms. Where I formerly lived in Kentucky as a teen and young adult, I could literally watch the storms roll in across the hills. Those were the big, angry, black clouds with sheet lightning embedded in them...with growling thunder shaking the very windows of my parents' house...with the curtains of rain shielding all from view. THOSE were thunderstorms!

Tonight, there's a thunderstorm brewing just off to the west. Though the growl of the thunder is a distant purr--which is, somehow, deeply comforting--the skies are illuminated with the most brilliant purply-blue flashes I've seen in a while. The winds, unlike my years in Kentucky, are not the threatening roar of an oncoming tornado; rather, they are the soft howl of the Banshee or the cry of the Lost Ones. It's a haunting sound, but one which, tonight, soothes my very depths.

It intrigues me how, tonight, Nature herself is tormented through this storm. It was a bad day at the Lair--some strikingly bad news (not the family or the pets, thankfully) came to us and threw us off-kilter. I sank into myself...this "threatening" storm has brought me back.

I'm reminded tonight, after all that's transpired today and with the storm literally "just around the corner", of a poem by Robert Frost. It seems fitting for tonight...

"Acquainted with the Night"

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

From New Hampshire (1923)

In the storm-shielded moonlight...