Enthralled

It's strange to become a creature of steel and glass. I've spent months inside windows and siding, panels of wood or plastic or stone.  I guide.  I encourage and help and persuade.  At the end of the day I plainly ache for the feel of sun on my skin as a man thirsts for water itself.  I return home - love and welcome and it's worth it....

But after the boys shower, I step in.  Above the sluice of the water, I can hear their teenage prattle and laughter down the hall as I wash the day away.  The dust and depression of lives lived entirely too alone; it saddens me, chagrins me.  The soap slides down the drain....and the sky outside the window splinters. 

I've never been able to resist the siren call of a thunder storm.  I've now tucked the boys in and find myself sitting, wet hair and nightgown, on the back porch in the dark.  I sit at the very edge, warm rain soaks my calves and drips off my toes.  The scent of spring redolent in the saturated air.  The wind surges and I can almost feel the caress of the rain sliding down the blackened bark of the huge tree in the rear of the yard.  Undulating and curving over the knobs and divots like a lover's wet touch...

The house is still behind me.  The trees have become fingers of ink against a charcoal sky.  Dawn will arrive all too early and yet still I linger.  Spring is a lover supreme, is she not?  She seduces with promise and teases with the fragrance of lilacs and loam...

I revel in her.