On that summer day
we experienced
all the four seasons,
but never at once.
This tends to happen
in Northeast Ohio.
In a different summer,
our porch was painted
a sort of light blue;
A shade of blue the
sky can assume
upon the perfect
alignment of all
universal force
imaginable.
Yet, in some places
that paint began to
fade; it peeled in others.

Four of us sat: One
on the swing attached
by chains to the ceiling,
Another on the
Adirondack chair
back in the corner.
Two more on marble
slabs, forming corners
of the rectangle.
Wrought iron railings,
painted black, so smooth
they coulda been God
himself, The Devil,
maybe even Death,
that most rogue agent.
The approaching storm
gathered quickly from
afar. Electric
space, all around us,
closed in upon our
tranquility. Then
a flash, contact too
close for our comfort…

Simultaneously
we became surprised,
inched ourselves backward
away from the storm
greeting us at our
literal doorstep,
each of us doing
so without knowing
the others would too.

So it rains, there's wind,
thunder and lightning;
we sit and watch,
hopeful for total
obliteration.
Of course, it never
happens. Silently
fallen twigs down the
(gratefully) we race
newly formed rapids
that collected in
our street's storm alley.