(a recent poem)

Weathering

Rain erupts in sudden squalls

flooding the sun out of the sky.

The mood in the car veers too.

Yesterday’s bickering resurfaces

but there’s no point in a rehash.

Tight-lipped, we lean away from each other

counting the yellow dots of headlights

marching along the wet pavement.

At North Bend we turn off the interstate

crab about lousy drivers

unsynchronized traffic lights

grease-smeared puddles spattering everything.

Out on the back roads

we weave among cottonwoods gone gold

silky green pastures

black soil tilled into even ribs.

Near Conway the storm lets up.

An easier silence expands around us

as the gray asphalt etches a straight line

between wide flat farms.

Suddenly around one last turn

there’s a sea of white fluttering

atop an open field. Thousands

of snow geese murmur and rise in small eddies

then settle onto the damp earth.

You slow the car as sun splits the clouds.

A low slant of tawny light washes the flock.

In that flurry of absolution

our hands touch.