May 11, 2012

The day after, after wind, after rain, after thunder and lightning, after the all night storm.  And I have been trying to get this started since I came home from school and still can't seem to get it together.  I suppose because our house was built without gutters that the rain off the overhang sounds particularly loud, and while it poured down another rain blew sideways into the window sounding like small hail, and the trees bashed the house in the back though they have been trimmed away from it, the branches were so bent by the wind that they managed it.  Now the gray has melted away to lavish white and blue, and the sunlight keeps appearing and disappearing like a lighthouse light sweeping the shore.  There was so much noise with that storm it was impossible to do anything but watch it out the window and wonder where the birds were sleeping in all that wild and wet!

The poem my foggy and sleep deprived brain picked for today talks about lightning, I supposed that's what caught my eye, and in the end it had something really surprising to say!

New Lightning

When you see lightning in the distance

     you know thunder

     is on the way

So don't get too upset when it gets here

     or find too much comfort

     in the driving rain

If you find yourself thinking

     that those who die

     in their sleep

have all gone the easy way

Don't forget

     what a wonderful feeling

it is to awaken

     from a nightmare

     & find you've just been dreaming

This isn't a world for comfort or being upset

     This is a world for waking up in

like this morning

      & still saying thank you

The cure for having

     your thunder stolen

     is to get some new lightning

Steve Toth

And since we have needed the rain, I, too, am saying thank you, and looking for some new lightning.  I have been thinking about dreams a lot lately, how so often I don't remember them, I remember dreaming, but only remember snatches, but I seldom have nightmares.  Do you supposed there is a reason for this?  Or that I just don't remember the bad ones?  I remember funny ones often, ones where people are put into new settings and try to adapt to them, or the new settings are particular poignant or telling.  Sometimes the nights are blank and those seem to bother me more than any others, a kind of emptiness that I find disturbing.  Last night, dozing toward waking, when I knew I would have to get up soon, there was a whole series of snatches of dreams, quick scenes that I forgot almost as soon as I woke, did forget as soon as I moved.  Storm dreams, colliding between moments of sleep and the necessary waking.  Well, if there is no storm tonight, perhaps this will be a night of dreams that last long enough to be remembered.