Summer Thunder, a poem by Abe Bassett

Abe Bassett

You said you were coming warning us from the distant west
We hear you roaring, louder and closer, stronger and nearer.
We hurry to sit on the porch where we hide from lightning
And cover our ears from the claps.

Moving fast you did but we wait for you to unleash your fury.

Ah . . . yes . . . there . . . fury . . .
The trees thank you for bending their trunks and exercising their limbs.
The leaves thank you for their many drinks of water
And the trod upon grass raises its arms upward to the sky.

The big brown rock with the pink stripe is
Lighter now, washed of its uninvited dust.

And I thrill in the buffeting wind and driving rain,
as I stay dry on my protected porch.

You were always happy to be a drop-in who gives only
a moment’s notice but won’t stay for anything more than a glancing blow
Never to accept our invitation to dinner or even a warm glass of whiskey.
Sorry, I got more stops in the east and I must move on, you say.

And so you go on shaking the earth
Taking with you your thunder and lightning,
Your energy and majesty
Leaving us to sit on the porch
Reading the mail the postman brought.

He with the drip-dry shirt that is already dry
And he with the mail that has been protected
From the bigly drops of rain that used to
Spot letters when they were written in ink.

So I sit here with my whisky and my mail
Wishing you or your cousin come back
To thunder us
And bend our trunks
And shake our limbs
And wash our rocks
And love us.