Kelowna Thunderstorm

Global News photo

Gun metal lake and gun metal bowl

of lowering, ominous sky, I swam 
on the edge of storm

that summer afternoon, back when

adults didn't worry much about

kid safety - sink or swim.

Alone in the lake, alone in my

twelve years of living, the scent

of danger near and familiar,

I floated my log on the waves,

gazed up at the sky so changed

from its normal friendly blue.

Thunder rumbled and roared
above my head
like the sky was about to fall.

I didn't know that water

attracts lightning. No one gave me

any guidelines on how to survive

in this world. It took me some years

and my own children's lives to learn
just how vulnerable to danger
children are,
how much they're in need
of protection.

There was a metallic smell in the air

I could almost taste. Just before

the lightning flashed,

some instinct for self-preservation

sent me back to my grandmother's cottage

where we'd sit in the back room,
as on so many summer afternoons
of my childhood,

listening to the thunderstorms

she loved so much.

I loved them, too,
once I was safe inside.

All my life, when I smell that
particular smell in the air,
listen for its roll and clap,
thunder takes me back
to summer afternoons
with my Grandma,
listening to the sky
sing in rumbling voice,
in that small cottage
that offered me
the only safety that,
back then,
I knew.

for earthweal: LIGHTNING FALLS. Right now, in the Okanagan, several serious wildfires are burning, threatening towns and reservations. People are being evacuated, or put on alert. Weather experts say all the fires burning throughout the province were sparked by lightning strikes.

Keremeos Creek wildfire

B.C. Wildfire photo