Cloudburst Poem by Bill Galvin

There is a quiet place
Where only golden spirits do the speaking;
Till gentle thunder rolls in from distant clouds,
Then, by and by, the first rain drops fall;
And steadily they build an intro from solitary notes
Toward a purposeful symphony of sound,
As they splash off natural and man-made surfaces;
And then a sharp clap closer overhead,
Like a cymbal-crash bridging verse and chorus,
Acts to drive even more pelting rain straight downward,
Till the nearby tree-line appears hazy and far away.

Each flash of light and rumble-roll
Intensifies this hypnotic beat of rain ever upward,
And the tempo keeps on increasing;
And this car-cocoon could be anywhere but here;
A shelter anywhere between here and there;
While visual outside anchors fade and disappear
From inside a flowing fountain… a watery curtain.

And rivulets of runoff begin forming in the gravel,
With determined water flowing downslope,
Gouging threaded gullies into this smooth dirt road;
And growing wider and cutting ever-deeper,
Until puddling into a deep unplanned pool down-a-ways.

This windless storm is local and impassioned…
The minutes are long and mesmerizing.

Breaks of blue sky slowly begin to appear,
As sunlight outlines white still-billowing clouds
On the periphery of this gray storm moving onward;
And as the scene brightens, the pouring rain relents;
The heavy air lightens; the puddle is topped off;
And the storm leaves as easily as it entered…
A natural and unpretentious display,
With a few drops lingering and rolling off the trees,
Plopping in staccato rhythm;
And the draining away quickly abating to a trickle.

And all is power-washed clean…
And everything returns to the inimitable quiet here;
A thousand silent smiles…
And an outro of the chirpy "all-clear" in nearby birdsong.