The Evening Storm

There's a blowing in the wheat fields
from which we obtain our piecemeal,
so I venture that the evening brings a storm.
Look at all the grass a-whipping,
and the coming clouds a-dripping,
tall and looming as they march in anvil form.

Call the children to the basement,
with its stone-enforced encasement,
lest the storm should prove more than the house can bear.
And we'll watch until the hail falls,
and the storm's thin, groping, frail claws
start to reach our homestead, raining everywhere.

Though the torrent's long and chilling,
and relent the wind's unwilling,
still we'll hold onto each other through it all.
Though the wind's still fierce a-blowing,
it will soon be softly lowing,
but until then I'll through gale's shriek hear your call.

O, the thunderous reporting!
Hear the tempest's grim retorting
to the heavens that entreat its swift surcease:
"We'll away when comes the morning,
all the land the sun adorning
with a shining light that only does increase."

As we huddle here, enduring,
I'll be softly reassuring
that the torment's soon to end and drift away.
Look! Already there is fading
to the sky's Stygian shading!
Now arrives the tumult's slow but sure decay.

Now the sun does come a-rising,
as the dawn's pale azure skies bring
now a rainbow arching long across the air.
And the sun is softly shining
whilst the blue sky’s surely signing
that the day is promised weather quaint and fair.

So we’ll now arise to saving
what few crops that had been braving
all the damage brought on by the hail’s strong fall.
And though hopeless it is seeming,
we must simply keep on dreaming,
keep rebuilding, keep on hoping, through it all.

-D.B.