Thunderstorm

MONSTER

Even
Concreted and blocked,
I can feel the panic in the air.
Down the rivulet of the street
Dogs bark.
Sweaty hands dial frantic numbers.
Lightning has struck,
Thawed artichoke hearts,
Deadened the soothing radio,
                 the machine hum,
                     the exact clocks,
                         the conditioned air--
The ends and means of our lives.
The line too dies.
       (no service--
         alone)
Painted nails click across the counter.

Outside, the wind beckons
               with claws of trees,
And Nature howls
           and whispers
                       and dribbles off the eaves.

Her eyes flash
Hunger.  Her brow
Glooms.  She rumbles,
She growls.  She roars
From the path where we came
Late:  strangers to our source.

1980

Florida is the lightning capital of the United States, and maybe the world.  Once summer and the hurricane season come, thunderstorms are frequent.  Our safe, secure, electrified and electronic homes are suddenly made vulnerable by lightning strikes.

Note the completion date--before the PC, before the Internet, before wireless communication.  Now lightning can be even more disruptive, frying computers (mine has been hit twice), crashing files, causing do-overs.  Wireless is a safety fallback--unless the wireless tower itself is hit!

"Monster" was first published in Monsters in a Half-Way House , 1981.  Of course, as usual, the poem is about more than just thunderstorms and their inconvenience.