Poetry Series: week 3

(Thanks to my dear best friend for the idea for this post.)

We are supposed to have thunderstorms today. I absolutely, positively LOVE LOVE LOVE thunderstorms.

I have ALWAYS loved thunderstorms. I distinctly remember many times, when I was little, when it would start to storm and my little brother would go running and hide under a blanket and I would go sit by a window and just watch it; sometimes for HOURS. Thunderstorms have always captivated me. I’ve always loved the mystery of them; how they come from no where and last for unknown amounts of time and then disappear slowly until suddenly, you realize that your gray clouds have gone and the sun is shining again, and you don’t even know when that happened.

Thunderstorms are composed of tightly controlled power. A power that roars so strongly that it can shake the very walls of my house; a power that flashes so brightly that it can light up the darkest of skies for miles and miles in every direction. I love the fact that even though something this strong could easily result in disaster, it doesn’t; instead, it makes a lot of noise and lets everyone know how strong it is but in the end, pours down drops of life-sustaining water. I love the intensity of storms. Some people personificate storms as angry, vicious things, but I’ve always thought of them simply as powerful.

Thunderstorms make me think about God, too, which might sound strange, but bear (bare?) with me. I think there are plenty of times when God chooses to act like a thunderstorm. He often comes out of no where; when we least expect it; and does things so strong and mighty and unbelievable that we’re forced to stop and look and think for a minute. He’s got a power strong enough to shake us to our foundations. And He constantly pours down the things we need -- the blessings, the guidance, the mercy -- to survive.

I love thunderstorms :)

A THUNDERSTORM
By Emily Dickinson

The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low, -
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky,
But overlooked my father's house,
Just quartering a tree.



A THUNDERSTORM
Archiband Lampman

A moment the wild swallows like a flight
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
The hurrying centres of the storm unite
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
Tower darkening on. And now from heaven's height,
With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
Column on column comes the drenching rain.


What do thunderstorms remind you of?