summer storms

What does your husband do in his spare time?  Mine writes me poetry when I'm scared.  

In the street, the headlights of passing cars
Cast fleeting shadows onto the walls beside our bed.
You are lying next to me
With your arm curled up beneath your head. 

The rain slaps and taps at the windows

And the sky intermittently crackles and glows

As you murmur softly that you hate summer storms.

Thunder grumbles in the distance 

And the echoes rumble our thin, fragile walls, 

But in those blinding flashes of light

I saw that your eyes were open and bright. 

Take courage, dear heart,

When the wild wind blows

And our finite human timbers strain and crack and groan;

Our destiny leads us unswervingly back

Together, or separate, to our home.

Josh Leland

P.S. poetry is meant to be read aloud.