Photo: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Supercell

BY MAGAZINE COLUMNIST CARYN MIRRIAM-GOLDBERG

Did you think your life was straight as this road,
something that could be time-lapsed into a predictable gait?
Did you ever try to map lightning, predict when
the thunderhead would pause and fold in on itself?
Have you pointed to a place in the clouds and said,
“there” just before a ghost cloud twisted briefly into form?
It is all nothing, then supercell, multiple strikes through
the clouds while the tips of the grass shimmer awake.
From the deep blue that narrates your life
comes the pouring upward of white curves and blossoms.
From the dark, comes the thunder. Then the violet flash.
From the panorama of what you think you know
comes the collapse of sky, falling on you right now
whether you’re watching the weather or not.
The world dissolves, reforms. What comes surprises,
motion moving all directions simultaneously, like the
losses you carry, talismans strung through your days, singing
of those you’ve loved deep as the blue framing the storm.
It rains for a moment in the field, in your heart,
then the weather stretches open its hand of life and says,
here, this whole sky is for giving.

Writing Prompt

Take any of the questions asked in this poem, and use them to dive into your own writing. Or spend some time looking at the sky whether there’s a supercell present or not: observe what the weather is telling you, and write about how the external weather infuses your internal weather.

Bonus fun This poem was written in conjunction with a video of a supercell filmed by photographer Stephen Locke.

Beginning a writing practice? Getting started, groundrules to free you, and podcasts of other writing prompts. Visit Caryn’s Write From Your Life page (http://carynmirriamgoldberg.wordpress.com/write-from-your-life/)

© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.