Category Archives: lightning

On thunder and lightning

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On a cool night in July when the wind blows up a summer storm, the rain falls, the lightning strikes, and thunder rolls across the mesa, one’s mind wanders aimlessly across the endless boundaries of the imagination, unbound, for once, by time and space. Wind scrapes through the leaves of the trees, which bend violently in the cold gusty air. The thunder cracks violently between buildings, and the lightning shines like the flash of an ancient anonymous photographer. On a cool night in July when you finally have a free moment, you can let your guard down and enjoy nature’s theatrics, letting the cool breeze quench the heat of the day. When you don’t have any more errands, the work of the day is done, there are no more responsibilities for today, then you can simply watch it rain without worrying about tomorrow. There is almost something sinister about the daily stress to which we submit ourselves and the damage it does to our minds and hearts. Sometimes it takes a cool night in July to remind one what it means not to worry for just a moment. No, the rest of the world does not stop spinning, and lots of things are going on across the world, but for just a moment, I am at home with the thunder and lightning.

On a night with no inspiration

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My muse is sitting out on the back porch, drinking something and wiggling her bare toes in the cool night air. She was reading Petrarch this evening. Petrarch always makes her quiet and pensive–she hates that old Italian, and she kept murmuring, “Trovommi amor del tutto disarmato.” She smokes another cigarette, watches the sun set, gets all maudalin and teary. I noticed she was also reading an old novel–can’t figure out what that’s all about. She likes April in Texas because the weather is always all over the place, at once too hot, too cold, too dark. I tell her I’m going to write about love, but she silently dismisses me and pulls out an old notebook where she starts to scribble. “He was right. Petrarch was right. How could he live with himself?” This time I walk away. A big, huge raindrop lands on her foot, and lightning is grumbling all around. She quotes quietly, “Que ni el amor destruya la primavera intacta.” I can smell the smoke from her half-burned cigarette. A filthy habit, but she doesn’t smoke really; she lights them and lets them burn. She doesn’t as much smoke as she does burn cigarettes. “You know, you need to start a new project,” she calmly says as the dark settles across the horizon. It was always nights like this when I knew that she loved me, but then again, no. I ask, “What would Lorca have said?” Without blinking, and as cold as ice she answered, “Sucia de besos y arena, / yo me la llevé del río.” She just stared out into the night, the wind was combed by the fig tree’s empty branches, and the stars traced infinite paths in the heavens. Ni nardos ni caracolas tienen el cutis tan fino ni los cristales con luna relumbran con ese brillo.–Lorca

On a night with no inspiration

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My muse is sitting out on the back porch, drinking something and wiggling her bare toes in the cool night air. She was reading Petrarch this evening. Petrarch always makes her quiet and pensive–she hates that old Italian, and she kept murmuring, “Trovommi amor del tutto disarmato.” She smokes another cigarette, watches the sun set, gets all maudalin and teary. I noticed she was also reading an old novel–can’t figure out what that’s all about. She likes April in Texas because the weather is always all over the place, at once too hot, too cold, too dark. I tell her I’m going to write about love, but she silently dismisses me and pulls out an old notebook where she starts to scribble. “He was right. Petrarch was right. How could he live with himself?” This time I walk away. A big, huge raindrop lands on her foot, and lightning is grumbling all around. She quotes quietly, “Que ni el amor destruya la primavera intacta.” I can smell the smoke from her half-burned cigarette. A filthy habit, but she doesn’t smoke really; she lights them and lets them burn. She doesn’t as much smoke as she does burn cigarettes. “You know, you need to start a new project,” she calmly says as the dark settles across the horizon. It was always nights like this when I knew that she loved me, but then again, no. I ask, “What would Lorca have said?” Without blinking, and as cold as ice she answered, “Sucia de besos y arena, / yo me la llevé del río.” She just stared out into the night, the wind was combed by the fig tree’s empty branches, and the stars traced infinite paths in the heavens. Ni nardos ni caracolas tienen el cutis tan fino ni los cristales con luna relumbran con ese brillo.–Lorca

On stormy weather

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When it thunders, one feels about five years old again. There is something totally viceral, totally primal about the chills that run down your spine when a clap of thunder shakes the house. Are there swirling chaotic winds blowing down off the plains of Kansas? You wonder. Is that fear I smell when a clap of thunder hits something near the house? The thunder becomes crisper and louder, and you wonder about taking cover. Raindrops clatter off the top of the chimney cap. Will Mother Nature be merciful? Or will she huff and puff and blow the house down? You feel small when the wind blows, the lightening strikes, and the hail clatters against the windows. Your reaction is not logical or sensible, but irrational and fearful as the wind grows to a roaring gale. Is the house safe? Oh, ye of little faith. Our puny homes are just a matchbox construction compared to the power and fury of a storm roaring across central Texas on its way to devastate Arkansas and Louisiana. Straight line winds, tornados, hail, torrential rain, and lightening are all the violent features of a weather phenomenon that is only too common in the month of April. We need the rain, but we would like to keep our trees. The things is these storms are not completely predictable in spite of what the weather people claim. In fact, the weather people know that they can only predict the weather within certain time parameters–the further you move out from the here and now, the less accurate their predictions are. Weather is a non-linear equation that is only predictable over an extended period of time because weather events are self-similar, but at any given moment, you might be wrong.

On stormy weather

Posted on by

When it thunders, one feels about five years old again. There is something totally viceral, totally primal about the chills that run down your spine when a clap of thunder shakes the house. Are there swirling chaotic winds blowing down off the plains of Kansas? You wonder. Is that fear I smell when a clap of thunder hits something near the house? The thunder becomes crisper and louder, and you wonder about taking cover. Raindrops clatter off the top of the chimney cap. Will Mother Nature be merciful? Or will she huff and puff and blow the house down? You feel small when the wind blows, the lightening strikes, and the hail clatters against the windows. Your reaction is not logical or sensible, but irrational and fearful as the wind grows to a roaring gale. Is the house safe? Oh, ye of little faith. Our puny homes are just a matchbox construction compared to the power and fury of a storm roaring across central Texas on its way to devastate Arkansas and Louisiana. Straight line winds, tornados, hail, torrential rain, and lightening are all the violent features of a weather phenomenon that is only too common in the month of April. We need the rain, but we would like to keep our trees. The things is these storms are not completely predictable in spite of what the weather people claim. In fact, the weather people know that they can only predict the weather within certain time parameters–the further you move out from the here and now, the less accurate their predictions are. Weather is a non-linear equation that is only predictable over an extended period of time because weather events are self-similar, but at any given moment, you might be wrong.