There was a thunderstorm
In London the night the coroner called.

I flew to California to make sense of it all.

You were afraid of the high dive just the year before.

Last night spread your wings,  stepped off the ledge to soar.

You played with rocks as a child and prayed to them as an adult.

The ring you wore for protection,  Sorry it didn’t work.

But you will be forever young the way you did predict

And I’ll be haunted by the imagery of how you left

I will spread the dust of you in the places where you found some peace.

The hardest will be our elephant shaped tree. Where we played in the creek.

You believed what the demons told you. But I know the truth.
You were loved and my heart is broken. I will grow old without you

Rain, the thunderstorm,

and the complete surrender --


of the trees: awesome!

There's a thunderstorm,

lightning above me, rumbling --


deep beneath my feet.

For hours they're chasing

each other across the plains:


thundery showers.

For half an hour already
Mimi is purring in my lap

on the toilet
where I am stroking her
because of the lightning

No fear for her
I am a good person
I know that myself

my side is the right side
of the line under the door
the blue light

of the bolts
and the rumbling thunder
the sword of Michael

that separates evil
from good in a time
we all know

as our own time

Thrums the bee waggle-dance in a haunt of Indian horsepaths,
Or the shaking leaf one second past the strike of galloping rain
/ Parsimonious lightning, thrifty in its jagged stalks
Against this night of heavy-hearted oaks /
Then the hay-fringed bale of sleep, rolled into a valley of slowed breathing,
Through parting cloud-diabolique, poison-peers the wet toadback of Autumn,
Glowing moon-gristle in the bosky wolf’s beard with its wireframe of teeth.

The words danced from my mouth
Desperate to bring on the rain.
They fell to the ground and shattered.
Fragile though they were,
they fueled thunder and created storms.