Weather-Light Poem by Judith Vriesema

Clouds gather into a hesitant summer sky.
The sea quiets its low-tide whispers
as the sun closes its windows for the approaching storm.
Steel grey-blue afternoons turn into midnight indigo as thunder hurls and beckons from green field pastures of buttercups and dandelions.
Weather-light
cascades and falls into sheets of silver rain as onlookers stare from beach houses safely encased in driftwood and panes of glass.
Artists paint the colours of sand and storm upon earthly canvases
while watching the storm with their inner eye.
Children sucking on oranges and lollipops gaze in awe as the storm races across a now- empty beach
the wind hurling their brightly coloured plastic buckets and shovels into umbrellas that fly toward the sea.
Plastic straws and ice cream cups clatter against the barrier between sea and land.
Concession stand owners huddle inside their make-shift world waiting for the storm to end;
radios blaring summer-time music into the afternoon rain;
the music somehow a comfort in the clash of thunder and bright white lightning.
Ferris wheels still turn and spin in the mechanical mist
while cafe tables gently rock to and fro in the storm
unaware of plates clattering like cobblestones onto the ground.
The storm races and laughs teasing the sun from behind windows now closed.
The past and the present collide into one quiet moment amongst the fury.
The sea dances with the wind,
and for a moment
innocence walks with time;
dreams surfacing from the sea;
the past and the present a sculpture of air.