Painting without power...

Never before have I seen rain such as this. And...this is a girl coming from the Pacific Northwest for the past two years. But seriously, cars under water, mobile churches floating down the highways, AND the news reporters are telling everyone to "stay home from church" (a big deal down here in Nashville).

When the tornado sirens went off this morning the news reporters told me to get into the bathtub. The bathtub? Seriously? But for a girl who is new to Tennessee weather patterns I thought, "if that's what they want me to do..." So, at 5:30am I got into the bathtub and sat with my blanket and pillow. Laying there listening to the thunder in the distance, I thought about cleaning the tile and scrubbing the shower curtain, but mostly I thought of this poem.

A Thunderstorm

by Emily Dickinson

The wind begun to rock the grass With threatening tunes and low, - He flung a menace at the earth, A menace at the sky. The leaves unhooked themselves from trees And started all abroad; The dust did scoop itself like hands And throw away the road. The wagons quickened on the streets, The thunder hurried slow; The lightning showed a yellow beak, And then a livid claw. The birds put up the bars to nests, The cattle fled to barns; There came one drop of giant rain, And then, as if the hands That held the dams had parted hold, The waters wrecked the sky, But overlooked my father's house, Just quartering a tree.

I love how turbulent weather inspires such artistic brilliance. Perhaps I should sit at home, in my dark house, and paint the clouds moving across the sky. I'm not much if a painter but maybe the storms will bump my talent up a little.