Thundershower

The sweet scent of newly stacked alfalfa hay pervades the sultry summer air. The bladed fan atop the windmill towering over the barn-red pump house is windlessly inert against the almost cloudless azure sky. Almost - because a line of cumulus puffballs is rising on the western horizon. The calm and muggy air is punctuated by the bubbling notes of a meadowlark on the garden gatepost and the occasional sweet, sweet, sweet of a yellow warbler in the lilac bush below the sun porch window.

The peaceful calm outside belies the anxiety welling up inside my seven year-old chest. I have learned to watch how clouds form in the distant western sky and I know a thunderstorm is brewing. I am anxious because I think about Mr. Woods who lived in a little white house by Ball Lake just two miles east of us. He was killed by lightning last year – while he was inside his house! I was told that he was sitting beside his radio which had an antenna rigged to a pole outside which lightning struck. But this does not completely convince my tender mind that I am safe inside our house even with its lightning rods and nearby windmill to divert a strike. 

Now a growing thunderhead emerges from the bank of cloud and relentlessly approaches. Eclipsing the sun, it reveals it dark earth-drenching underbelly. Forks of lightning stab the ground. The rising wind whips the windmill into a frenzied whirr. The poplar leaves whisper and rustle, showing their lighter undersides to the wind. A wisp of dust kicks up from the yard. Faint thunder rumblings grow to sharper louder cracks, the echoes fading far away. From my perch beside the kitchen window I see big drops begin to splatter on the walk and multiply into a steady spate. 

Ere long the thunderclaps do fade and drops reduce to drizzle. The sun peeks out beneath the eastward drifting storm’s grey roof. A rainbow comes to life and bridges neighboring fields and woods. Leaves and grass now glisten in the evening sun as tiny rivulets across the yard run dry. 

I’m back outside exhilarating in the freshness of the air. The robin’s sweet melodious notes that echo from the woods reflect the lifting of the weight of worry from my mind while leaving in its place a soaring surge of boyhood bliss.