Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The Weather

Sitting on my patio watching storms roll in is a sweet afternoon delight.  My favorite days involve thunder and lightening and lots and lots of wind.  If Steve would let me, our bedroom window would be open about two inches each night just so I could know what was going on outside with the weather.  As a kid growing up in rural Kentucky I slept with the window open.  I could hear the chickens very early in the morning or the cows lowing in the neighbor's fields.  In the Spring, the smell of the magnolias would waft through the window.  The cooing of a dove will forever remind me of being tucked in my bed, nice and warm.  These days I can hear the whippoorwills in the middle of the night and the distant howling of the coyotes, haunting and strangely comforting.  I snuggle in just a little tighter when the wind picks up and blows in through the open window.  Pure contentment.

I found this poem years ago.  I found a kindred spirit.  The author, Steven Schreiner even kept his window open two inches as well.  For him those two inches not only let in the weather, but also hope after mourning.

The Weather
Ever since I can remember, I have been in love
with the weather, an extension of hope
or despair.  It comes to the window
in the morning, after crossing the country
all night:  the plains outside Topeka,
between the mountains of Ouray, across the flat
farms of Iowa where the corn turns a brilliant
green when you awake.  And when you sleep
and startle from some nightmare
of yourself in deep trouble, fighting your own
life, and should open a window, it comes
there too, it's already there
and walks right in as if it's been waiting
just for you.  I always hoped
the air would warm, I don't know why, with my radio
tuned to weather and my window open two inches.
The days moved by degrees in me, spring
coming around 52, then 55, and soon
summer, the tiring days, the mornings
bright as crystal.  If in your life
there was un unexplained event, losing a father or
having the wrong one, you were probably also looking out
into the frosted trees, for some extension
of yourself, some frostbitten hope, that soon
it would grow green again in the places
where the black earth steamed under you.

The Weather, from the book Too Soon to Leave by Steven Schreiner (Ridgeway Press, 1997)

2 comments:

Sarah Guild said...

I love this. My window wasn't open so much. However, I love the changes in weather. I would find sameness in weather very boring. God's majesty is so clearly visible in the seasons, storms, weather.

Lauren said...

Majesty is a word we don's use much anymore. But you are so very right. As usual! :)