Rainy Times

This morning the clouds are low, the sky leaks damp, terú-terús,
doves, & dragonflies seek the freshly weeded patches, taste the earth.

The morning’s bright heat ebbs to solid white in the east,
moving black in the west, & a dust-devil wind
that rises to rattle the doors.

By mid-morning we’d weeded the Internet up & running, by mid-afternoon
we’d weeded up a thunderstorm that dampened the turned earth.

Afternoons the winds blow, sometimes fiercely, & outdoors in bright sun
or mottled by clouds moving east, the veranda rockers idly rock.

Blackened cloud, knock-down breeze, thunder’s metal, lightning’s tease,
drop scatter across the big window: outcome’s no more than a flutter.

Rumbled by thunder, menaced by gray, drenched now by wind-blown rain,
the crew unrolls the heavy black plastic to turn a hole into a pond.

After brief strong rain & a full house, suddenly we find ourselves alone
with open doors admitting the mild sweet air, the benteveo’s song.

I hadn’t seen a swallow for days before the dark clouds in the southeast,
the heavy rain, the window leaks, the end-to-end double rainbow.