The evening stars were gone, replaced
by a spreading, ominous purple bruise of cloud.
When the wind rose, in sudden violent
crisscrossing gusts, everything went into motion.
White cabanas shook, like staked swans
flapping to fly, lavender bushes thrashed
their thorny arms as if in panic, umbrella pines
creaked and writhed like tethered balloons.
Lightning lit the winding, stony stairs, like ornamental
neon lights, as we’d run up the path from the beach.
Shockwaves of thunder accompanied the flashes
- there was no lag - the storm was there and upon us.
We were laughing and screaming, like children
chased through a dark Halloween funhouse.
The first, fat drops of rain popped behind us,
like a giant’s, arrhythmic, snapping fingers.
As we reached the open, French, louvered doors,
that led from our suite down to the shoreline,
we body-slammed them against the tempest.
And braced them fully closed with our backs, as if to vilify the
natural courses of wind and rain with an animal will to break in.
The lashing monsoon heralded our urgent, stormy union.
We were like the storm - insistent, wild and untamed.
All was revealed in that flashing, tempestuous darkness
as need, euphoria and lightning lit the naked night
.
.
A song for this:
Walk Between Raindrops by Donald Fagen
Hurricane Waters by Citizen Cope
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 09.07.24:
Vilify = To harshly judge and be be openly critical.