30 September, 2020

Orange Haze

A gentle giant rumbled in the sky
In older times, when weather was a friend
With eyes shut tight, I'd feel the wind drift by
But patterns, large and small, began to bend


I grew up in the midwest, and it's a place that leaves an impression on you. Winters were cold. Summers were warm. Fall was the browns, oranges, and ochres of falling leaves and pine needles. And springs were the green and the crisp, bright sunlight that promised the start of the next cycle.

It rarely just rained. More typically, there was rain with a deep, rolling, distant reverberation of thunder, at times interspersed with a sharper, but still amicable sound of nearer thunderclaps. It wasn't a crack, so much as the sound of tearing a giant piece of paper, as the vibrations continue to echo through the material itself.

Those were the days when "go inside when it's lightning outside" was something that adults said, and that you did because you were told; not because you actually understood what could happen.

Sometimes, during the perfect thunderstorm, the gentle, humid breeze would feel so wonderful amidst the chorus of pitter-patters emanating from the raindrops landing all around you…