Here We Have May

Rain burst just as I folded into bed.
With no intro, a fury could've drowned us,
Fell like fists of ice. Wildness,
Crazed drumming all around
For maybe ten minutes.

The sky collapsed, clearly.
Quiet, a pause, a second burst.
Very furious, like the first.

Sheltered tomato and zucchini wait to be
Settled in sunny ground, hoping not to
Be battered or drown.

In two shades of pink,
Two peony plantings just today popped
Into fullest bloom.

Was digging salad bits into compost in greying light,
Shoveling an unkindness to industrious, gleaming worms.
One eye on a failing gardenia that may end here soon;
Amaryllis in energetic come back.

"So happy," says the French-speaking Cameroonian prince,
If a person is pleased with his work. "They were so
Happy. She was so happy."

A burst of rain is not a tornado, we say, at the open front door.
Thoughts of Oklahoma, rows of flattened, shattered homes
Shadowing upright rows of untouched homes.

In darkness, nearly light, I hear this house
Breathing, the tap of laptop keys and
Interweaving honey curls of birdsong,
Above and beyond all.

Here we have May,
Nearly Memorial Day,
Nearly summer.