Days of thunder

always sudden —

I unplug modem, devices.

(Modem’s new.

Earlier storm 

killed the last.)

Few chances 

to share poems online

though I still write. 

Silver lining:

time

to find them.

In response to Friday Writings #151 at Poets and Storytellers United, where Magaly invites us to be inspired by Mary Oliver's poem,  “The Uses of Sorrow”: 

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness. 

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift. 

Admittedly, the 'darkness' in my poem is more in the nature of an inconvenience. But I had trouble thinking of any darkness I've experienced which was also a gift. I guess it takes me even longer than it did Mary.

Warning

warning —

fairies live here

(Neighbourhood Watch)

from my front window

Bittersweet October

Because we have turn-about sun and rain

in a world where weather has gone mad

tumbling over each other too quickly,

the abundant growth of Spring exaggerated,

everything flourishing faster than ever

richly adorning the whole landscape, 

surrounding us wherever we look 

with burgeoning leaves and flowers,

every hot day and every wet one

enticing our senses, even as

the swift changes set us reeling …

Our reactions too are rapidly

changing – one day we think,

This is Summer, ahead of time,

only to wake to a sudden return,

bewildering in its rapidity, to Winter.

Even as we rejoice, we begin to expect,

reliably unreliable, constant overturning.

October in the Southern Hemisphere is officially in the middle of Spring.

Written for Magaly's prompt for Friday Writings #148: Bittersweet October, at Poets and Storytellers United.