Riding a Mariner’s Storm

I found myself caught in wrath.
It began in soundless fury.
Distant lights and internal flashes.
No rain. No wind.
Just light, ambient and threatening,
Illustrating the fullness of what was to come.
Patter.
Spatters.
Steadier and heavier and then there are sheets of water cascading up my wheels and down my hood, overwhelming my trembling wiper blades.
Trees, houses, a chicken farm,
Each are lanced with white hot lances
Without the mercy of rolling thunder
Just a strict crack and a blinding light.
I cannot look up anymore.
My eyes are too full of lightning after-burn.
I lose the road in the water and wind.
I slow but cannot stop, unwilling to concede defeat in the maw.
I do turn on my blinkers, though I am the lonely car in the night.
The wind shifts, the wavelengths of water in front of me shift forward, driving headlong into my windshield.
I strike through newly minted puddles,
Adding a personal touch to the cacophony.
Whip cracks and rail yards, but I can see the edges of the anger in all the light.
No ultimate destruction, no funnels, no heaving earth and bowing trees.
Not yet.
I am a sailor on the back roads.
A rural Odysseus.
I will sail the wrath home, like the mariner, and gladly give up my sea legs for a safe bed.
And a stiff drink.