Storms

It’s dark now. The rain picking up, slackening, picking up. Rain on the balcony railing pinging, high tension steel, rushing in the copper downpipes, looser on the canvas awning, the drumbeat on the forest leaves.

Lightning flickering 5 elephants away, the thunder above the low cloud rolling, every now and then a stage director opens a flap to let it boom out, creeping close.

I wonder about the horses high on the Pratomagno; where do they go in the eye of the storm.

I close my eyes at the magnesium burn of the lightning. Closer now. The roll becomes terrible artillery booms. I move inside.

My head full of other storms;

the green light one morning at Ladydowns above Zennor after a full night of it, trees down, the skid into the truck on the way from school;

the Snake Pass after a day in Liverpool, purple lightning, torrential rain, just desperately trying to keep moving, thinking of Grandpa who’d go out in the car to keep rubber between him and the avenging angels and out of this maelstrom a biker weaving across the road, hammered and so vulnerable;

the Prima Capello at Varese, the uninsulated wires running flame around the house, the neighbour’s cry of ‘Wolf , Wolf è scappato’;

Cae Rhys on my own and a huge storm, terrified, just a kid, in the back bedroom, convinced someone, the malevolent, would clomp slowly down the landing passage, a stick by my side as if that would have served;

the glorious afternoon summer storms in Linton from my safe bedroom above the High Street, watching the rain fill the street.

Too early for bed although it’s late. Too late for redemption although it’s too early. Cover mirrors, cover windows. Husband candle and phone. Ears alert. Knowing one wave passing is a trick, a lure, a con. Settle now lad. Sleep. So the next rolling cannonade blindsides you.

Safe inside stone walls two feet, a metre thick, the new roof sound, but the fear is not out there, it’s here, inside, beating in my heart.