Storms in the Desert

Tonight I watched a thunderstorm.

Soft rain pittered and pattered down onto the thankful grass

and onto the unyielding gray sidewalk, still warm from the day,

and onto my shoulders and the backs of my legs

which grew chilly when the breeze kissed them,

raising goosebumps on my bare arms

that I tried to hug away.

The clouds gave up their form

and smudged the sky

and the tops of the mountains

with dirty rose and dusty purple and cold blue.

A flash and a rumble

and I thought about those who came before,

about how they saw fire falling from Heaven

and about how they could hear 

the very words of God

in the voice of the thunder.

I breathed deeply

and the earth smelled new

and full of hope

and the promise of things to come.

Then the sky above my head split into forks of flickering, electric white

and I felt no fear—only awe, and gratitude, and comfort, 

and I thought it must be because of you

and all those storms in the desert.

If I had a window to the past I would look there, in the desert, and find 

you,

sitting on the hood of a car, or in the back of a dented, rusty pick-up truck,

a little girl on your lap, gazing up at the sky.

Instead of mountains there would be cactus with arms reaching,

and instead of sidewalk there would be baked earth, cracked from the 

unforgiving sun,

and you would whisper things to her there, in the desert,

things a father says to his daughter when they sit beneath a stormy sky,

and your voice would be like the thunder to her.

I wonder sometimes

how many more storms we might have shared,

I wonder if we would have waited until the clouds emptied themselves

and rolled away,

then pitched a tent beneath the stars.

I wonder lots of things

when the rain falls and the lightning strikes

and the storm speaks with the voice of God.

But there are things I don’t wonder, not anymore.

Like how the rain got into my blood

and the thunder into my bones

and how the lightning danced into my soul. 

I don’t wonder because I know: 

You put it there 

on the nights we watched storms 

in the desert.