When I was young,
I’d sit outside in the storm
And hear the sky crackle around me
Rain lashing the earth like a vengeful mother.
I did not know then that I was thunder’s child.
This I would find out only twenty-five years later,
Sitting in my friend Buda’s flat,
My face and the face of the priest illuminated by a single candle as he tossed cowrie shells into the bead-lined universe on the table.
We learn to take cover from the storm,
To stow ourselves away where no wind can reach us.
And yet, if you listen,
A voice, which is there because we are as old as every other thing,
Still says, sit in the storm
Says, you have been storms,
Been meteor showers and solar flares,
And eddies in the vast graveyard that only answers to the moon.
After the game, I stood up from the table and knew
That every thunderclap was a blessing.
It started to pour.