The blast of wind shivered the palm tree fronds,
they clattered and chattered in late-afternoon alarm.
I smiled. Feeling the storm-to-come,
amazed at the desert year's luxury of precipitation
falling from skies of gray and blue.
There was time… I stretched at my computer desk,
thought of my daughters; one at ‘Little Cheers’,
one at a ‘Knowledge Bowl’ tournament
miles away. As was the storm, miles away.
Husband calls, another double shift.
I go out front, sit, watch these diverse
battalions of gray-clad clouds
marching across my limited sight, as shredded
outriders tugged at my soul, calling me. I wanted
to rise up, out of my flesh, and follow.
Not so easy. One day, I will. Anyway,
as I’m picking up my little cheerleader,
the clouds were scudding closer. I go
into the high school; we’d been ‘advised’
we had to physically retrieve our children…
The reason, my nine-year-old tells me,
with innocent relish, is because
a man tried to pick up a little girl
who was not his… So, I’m early,
watch them finish up. Her and I
drive the mile to the corral. She feeds,
I watch the cloudy rains over mountains
I can’t see from my lower-tiered house.
Driving back, with a stop at our only Gas-Mart,
the plops of gravity-screaming free-fall
shatter my being, yet, it is so delicious…
I open our vehicle windows wide.
She gasps as the cold rain hits her cheek,
her eyes, her self; I laugh with delight!
My silly diva, thinking she is the center
of life, like her mom, that the rain
is devised to her expectations, like her mom.
I have to bend my path; my turn
to be struck by pelleted life, by singing sight.
This time, as I smile, tears
run down my face, mingling
with the tears of heavens smell.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 10/13/04