The Inevitability of Rain

Dark clouds creep in from the West,
rain, so hard it casts a curtain
on the distant landscape,
marches,

it’s violent gravity sends
mist you can smell in the air,
less a warning
than a dark promise.

How long before it reaches you?
an hour? More? Mere minutes?
It does not matter.
What matters is its inevitability,

the sureness of wild winds,
angry rain that will strip the autumn leaves
from their glorious beauty
and leave only

the ugly skeletons of winter.
What matters is the cold moisture
the penetrates like ghosts
into all who brave it. So

do not stand against it.
You cannot.
The storm’s October cold
will slither into your bones.

Better to hide,
and let it rage like a woman scorned
in the night.
Let it’s lightening strike and burn elsewhere

and wait it out as
just as inevitable,
it passes.

==========================

The photograph was taken in Washington County, NY this past Sunday. And yes, before it was done, I got rained on.

Tom