Stormchaser


After all these years
            honing my skills,
        paying my dues,
    fighting my losing battles as bravely as I could,
I have earned the distinction
               of master stormchaser.
  Diving into the hurricane,
         watching the world whirl by
    in snatches of dust and blood,
                            flesh and dirt,
        I was transfixed by the art of the half-truth,
                                       the poetry of the last goodbye.
    Emerging on the other side,
              covered with kaleidoscopic bruises,
                   hair tousled and matted with sweat,
            I spent hours of breath
                          looking back at the devastation,
                looking back in awe,
           carefully taking record of the debris,
                                   but salvaging little to none.
     When the wind changed,
           I would hop into my truck like a chariot,
        high on the speed of the road
               and the warmth of the sun.
  But now I feel a crisp cold front
            moving in from the north.
  It ripples over the skin I'm covered in,
            unfolding my heart as best it can,
                curling my bleeding red lips into a grin.
    And I'm off again.
       I swerve onto a new highway,
               pushing pedal to floorboard,
          singing at the top of my lungs-
                   now full of fresh, cool air.
    As my mind leaps from visions of paralyzing ice storms
                                  to visions of the blazing Northern Lights,
      I steady myself to embark on a new journey,
              to navigate the thousand miles ravenously,
                              to explore the territory passionately, 
       and with no regrets.
      And all the while, the choir at the back of my skull
              sings hymns of settling down and pitching a tent,
         spirituals of leaving the storms to those who devour chaos,
     prayers that the grains of sand lodged in my eyes
                        have not left me colorblind.




  


    

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