Screened Porch

The screened porch

When I was small,
we sat in big wicker chairs
on the back porch,
breeze slipping through the screen,
peas pinging into a pot,
shells heaped in an emerald pile on the floor.
Peace like the golden summer light
filling the open
protected
space.

When summer thunder rolled in from the west,
I clung in terror to my mother.
No tale of giants bowling,
of the beauty of lightning,
the quenching, sweet rain
could ease my fear.
Only the curve of arms
mother cocoon
where I hid my face,
covered my ears
would do.

Now, my slumber party girlfriends and I
watch the storm march toward us,
Lightning stilts, jagged, striding from the north.
Crashing thunder, cataclysmic
We wisely
count between flash and concussion of thunder.
one . . . two . . . three.
Less than a mile away.

Rolled up in too-hot sleeping bags,
we lie on the wooden floor
tucked against the wall, away from the fine mist of rain
forced in by the wind.

We tell ghost stories,
of course,
laughing even as we flinch in the jagged light,
repeating parts of the tale,
lost in the crash of thunder.
repetition blunting the terror somehow.

Then, as the storm rumbles,
sullen 
down the valley,
we talk about boys.
tell tall tales about our own
transgressions
and conquests.

In the back pasture, sheep clip the grass with their blunt teeth,
Wind sighs through the pine trees by the garden,
fireflies dance their answer to the storm
just past,
and we sleep

In the morning, the red sun wakes us,
The misty, cool air
scented with hay and pine,
meets the musty smell of sleeping bags.

Birds call
and a lamb cries,
waking,
seeking its mother.

Too early to rise, we lie,
silent,
waiting for the day,
and for the days to come
beyond the screened porch.