GODS OF A HUDSON RIVER STORM

BY Alice Campbell Romano

Unsafe, under an oak, I wait for an August storm
to sweep over the river and into the trees,

its annunciation the air, alive, warm, thick on my skin.
I am only seven, spellbound by anticipation. The breeze

begins its whisshhh-whisshhh in the high oak leaves
and the sky comes closer, dark like a silver platter,

slashed by bright, bare branches of lightning
before clouds crash together and wind fills the woods

with possibilities, and then the rain starts, drops
like glass teardrops, far apart, then faster, faster

until a gray wall moves across the river and soaks
everything, makes ferny air rise up rich with wet dirt

and new oxygen, so I know these woods, these trees,
are where the real gods live, and I shout through the

crashing thunder, tell the thunder and the rain
and the wind I know what you are. I am you.