High Summer Thunderstorm Returns Me

What glory to feel the pressure change,
the air to capture moisture from far above,
to bring it to earth as supplicant gift.

I am desiccated as desert bones in my mid-summer skin;
only the salves of supermarkets — moisturizer and chap-stick —
aid me in this season of sun-blanched skies.

The numbers, the measurement of suffering,
bespeak and belie the nature of this moment and place;
what is one-hundred-twelve degrees to scorched Mercury?

To my body, to this bag of skin filled with water,
today is a visit to a level of Dante’s Inferno;
I wonder: will the sun deny me life as it has countless others?

But in a moment, a series of moments as magic as life itself,
a rumble from far away announces the return of a king
like the drums of the Praetorian Guard once heralded Caesar.

Thunder strikes a spark, a charge,
from high to low like the blow of a sword —
and the parched land of my life is drenched in unseasonal showers.

I take my place under the deluge;
my part in this play is to celebrate, to welcome
this gift as a priest names and sanctifies the portent.

I raise my face, my arms, to the life-giving sky in welcome;
nothing but good can come of this sacred moment,
as my outstretched tongue begs for the blessing of living water.

This high summer thunderstorm returns me
to myself as a boy, who once felt the raindrops in the air
as proof that the world is good, and is my home, and bears no grudge.

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