September Song

(Blue skies and Fleecy Clouds Come In September)

We’ve had tropical showers on and off.

I had to pick up the girls from school with

the step-through motorbike at three.  Beam

sits in front of me with her head bowed and

resting on her hands  looking forward

over the headlight much like a picture of a girl

at Christmas I remember looking out a window

at a robin freezing on the sill outside.  Boom sits

sidesaddle in back of me.

A half-hour before we had torrential rains,

but by the time I left and got back the roads

were gray dry.

At four the sky is black to the east, again.

I sip vodka and orange juice and wait for

the storm to rush over the lush, Thai land,

coming from Cambodia and Vietnam driving

hazy, low, gray black house-fire-looking clouds

ahead  and down.  Watching this is exhilarating

like watching a plane about to crash. The wind rises.

I sit in my orchid bower as the rain hits like

a gray cream pie in the face . . . whomp.

You can almost hear the “help me!” screams from

a skinny line of sorry looking banana trees while

low, leafy trees and bushes begin their jazzy busking

routine looking like Ethyl Merman belting out Bill

Bailey  next to a wall at the bottom of a long flight

of subway stairs. 

I run in but turn back in the open door to look.

It’s a Gettysburg out there, but I am safe.  I have

no expectations except this storm will pass. 

I am safe.

FG           9/17/2015

I can remember that Blue Skies song from when I was a kid in Goffstown and the expectations (new school year, Indian Summer, Winter, Spring) it brought with it.  I have no expectations here.  Maybe it is my age, maybe the weather maybe it’s both.