Bright and Ominous

The sky is a strange color orange,
somehow bright and ominous at the same time
and you are left unsure

whether it is storm or the promise
of the night’s red sky.
Birds fall silent.

Something is coming.
That is all you know,
and you wonder, at your age,

If you are ready.
You have survived storms, a lifetime of them,
some reducing you to rubble, some leaving you

like some crusading knight, victorious against all odds.
All of them, leaving you marked,
stronger and more worn both,

and unsure how many victories you have left in you.

But that is the nature of battles.
You fight until you are destroyed.
And the wise man treasures each day he breathes.

You have become wise. Not by choice, but by circumstance.
You start the new day like a warrior,
worn and ready.

In the strange skies, you see neither omen nor promise.
There is only the moment,
bright and ominous at the same time.

About this poem

I am sitting at the local McDonalds as I write this. It has rained through the night and there is flooding. Most of the parking lot is under water.

I stumbled on this picture in my files last night. It was taken from the quarry across from my house in West Pawlet, Vermont.

I have had a hard time getting going this morning.

And from those three things, this poem. The mind is a strange thing, the way it puts things together.

Tom