Song of the Storm

Marina windows glowing with

moonlight and lightning,

I’m standing on tired toes,

peering into the sky that tastes like ocean,

trembling with wonder as the sky smiles.

Jagged white teeth stretch to touch cotton cheeks

aglow with the cool light of midnight.

Laughter rumbles out from the depths

of a midnight ocean whose tide never turns toward the shoreline

of treetops, shingle roofs, and horizons.

My heart wanders into the waves,

captured again in the unknown course

of currents tugging at its strings.

There’s danger in the night sky,

but I can’t help the wonder

that draws me farther up but further in—

closer to that place where feet walk on water and

wide-eyed dreams mingle with courteous reality

to form spiral galaxies leading to somewhere

beyond the distance my feet can tread.

This song of the tempest

that soars in zephyrs,

roars in my ears;

it has rekindled my awe again, and…

I think I see You in the flashes—

in the life fires that blink

beyond the pale faces of those who have

never tasted the sea—

that paint the world white

and hang in the sky like so much sea foam.

In the song of this storm,

I hear You calling to me.

It’s dark, but by this lightning,

I’m making my way home.