The wind howled drowning out the shrieks of crows
As they harried and swooped at the buzzard above
Forcing him yet again to drop his hard-won prey
And as the clouds thickened, and sky darkened,
All signs of light started to fade from the day.
A mighty thunderous storm was surely on its way.

Once more, I emptied the bucket, that now
Seems to permanently live in the loft
Always waiting, to catch that single drop of water
That somehow manages to find its way
Through the edge of the roof tiles, to drip
In perfect correlation with the rain.

Then it began…

It started with a gentle pitter-patter
On the sun-lounge roof where it is always first noticed
Soon lightning flashed in its startling iridescence
Of pink and blue, to prove to us its presence
Shortly followed by the long mighty crash
Of thunder as it tried desperately to catch up

And with it came a reservoir of rain

At the windows it rushed so break-neck fast
It seemed they would surely just burst or smash
A bird-table outside in the garden fell
With a loud breaking-to-pieces crash
And flower pots took to the air in unison.

Jugglers may spin plates around on sticks
I’ve seen more than a dozen spinning round
But the wind has no boundaries and hurled up high
Plastic pots of all colour and size and shape
Outside the window such a staggering sight
The pots now looked as if they were Heaven bound.

And then it stopped…

As suddenly as it had begun, the lightning disappeared
The thunder, after a last weak gentle rumble, fell silent
The rain changed to a light drizzle and finally stopped
It was as if it knew it had other places to call, and it had.
And in it’s wake the sun peered wearily from behind the clouds
Daylight returned, and once more a sense of calm descended.

And as the wind gradually faded to a gentler breeze
And saplings that had bent over stood up again like trees
A small cascade of flower pots quickly fell to the ground
And added to the mess that the short storm had left
I turned my back and walked away to my den
That would be a tidying task for who knows when!

©Joe Wilson – The storm…2015