Passing Storm

Depression comes in summer like a storm
that sweeps in unexpected,
building clouds that turn a day to night.
Deep darkness forms.

The next thing, lights go out. 
You hear hail knock and think of crops and loss. 
If you look out,
you see the shape of trees, how limbs toss,
you think, like limbs in hell. 

It’s just as well you have no eye for color. 
Absent news,
the house becomes a prison,
faces shut and white almost to death. 

But these storms pass.

You see the track in limbs and wires down,
perhaps a treelike dragon on its back,
and wait for birds to sing. 

The birds storms drown, in any case, are few. 
Most birds survive
and with each bird a song. 
It would be wrong to think that birds won’t sing. 
It’s what birds do.