The storm clouds built in a clear hot August sky, lifting themselves to tower over the bayou in the northeast, their grumbling growing bolder with the approaching sunset. Cormorants and water turkeys fly low in groups of two and threes, or ragged V’s of a dozen, hurrying for the welcome of roosts in wetland grasses, the sparrows fleeing for the fencerows of rice fields which wave saffron heads in the late summer wind.

A dragonfly lites briefly on the weathered railing of the dock like a misplaced emerald brooch, it’s faceted eyes capturing myriad reflections of the old man awaiting the storm in the ending day. A small kingfisher, looking like a sassy kid with a 50’s haircut, comes to gawk from the lowest limb of a nearby cypress, tilting it’s head in wonder at the man unmoving among the rasping gusts of storm scented air.

The minnows living in the shade of the old dock suddenly scurry and leap at the water’s surface as an alligator gar slowly ripples it’s armored sides along the grassy line at water’s edge, it’s blunt snout open to show off rows of needle teeth, it’s eye squinting up at the man in the slanting light.

The storm comes closer with determination, and pushes a canopy of strange yellow-green which glows with it’s own light, and turns the dark waters into a sheet of undulating copper. Two purple martins, catching mosquitoes early rising from the long grass, dash down the water’s clearing, their pointed wings leaving swirling vortexes in the amber sky like a painting that Van Gogh never painted.

In the west, the sun pulls velvet-green covers over it’s face, and whistles the wind to bed. A flash startlingly intimate in it’s closeness takes all color away and leaves only lingering black-and-white images in the clap of it’s thunder. A late fishing boat hurries out on the bigger water, the red eye of the running light searching the deserted docks frantically for the particular shelter where it would spend the night, tied to faithful old pilings. And as tiny circles begin to give testimony of falling droplets, the old man still sits, bound to pilings of his own, set deep in the black gumbo of the bayou, his eyes darkening with the storm at the end of the day.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), August 12, 2001

Answers

Beautiful!

-- helen (love@lons.writing), August 12, 2001.

Lon, your writing is SO expressive and touching! I can visualize everything you're talking about. You truly have a gift with words! You notice details that others would overlook or miss completely. Thank you for sharing part of yourself and your thoughts with us.

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 13, 2001.

Ya still got it Lon :-)

-- (thesonofdust@good.writing), August 13, 2001.

A lovely postcard, Lon! I hope the storm outside was no reflection of what was within.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), August 14, 2001.

Trish, how'd you get to know me so well?

;-)

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), August 15, 2001.

Lon, I'm sorry to hear I guessed right?

Hope all the storms have quieted as beautifully as your writing.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), August 16, 2001.