The Curiosity of Storms
It is not the best of days.
The sky is historically dark on the horizon.
The waves have gone quiet, barely heard.
There is no wind.
Somewhere in the distance, out of sight
you hear the wail of a lone seal.
There is a chill in the air.
It happens now and again. The past.
The losses.
The remembrance of nights without end,
Their revival always a surprise.
But you are old now. You bear the scars gladly.
Storms are no more than that,
a passing, a change of scenery
bound to change again,
bringers of change perhaps, or perhaps not.
That is the curiosity of them, the uncertainty
of anything except their eventual leaving.
About this poem.
It is one of those days where I cannot pry anything out of my emotions to write about. But the discipline of writing matters to me, so I wander through my pictures, find one, and write to it. There is truth in it, but an old truth, not in the moment. Not raw. Maybe better for the distance. Maybe not, but the discipline, for me, is healthy. And sometimes, it breaks things loose, like good therapy.
The picture was taken at Cape Cod.
Tom
Quarry House 
What a beautiful picture! The rays of sunlight! Thanks very much. – Ellyn in Baton Rouge
The whole world is about light and dark. So that is what I capture in so many of the pictures I take. My kids and my wife know when I take a picture of a certain thing in a certain light. They will even tell me as I am taking the picture – “There’s a poem in that one.” Sort of a family joke, but there is truth in it.
Sometimes you talk about how much trimming the hedges of poetry need. I am thinking you showed us of an example of a 3page essay that was getting out of hand and now is an example of ‘rightsizing’. much meat in this one.TO be re-read!
I had a professor many many many years ago who was relentless in forcing me to look at and cut out things from poems. I hated it. killed a lot of good lines, he did. But he was right. It is fine to kill a few good lines for a better poem.