Rolling Lumber Poem by Craig Steiger

At five o’clock the sky grown dark
With thunderclouds
Bristles with raw voltage:
Dry gusts of wind,
Pregnant with something,
Lift the blanch underside of alder leaves
On the trail from the creek.
The swirling air carries a cold spritz in it
Playing against your delighted cheek.
Faint rifleshots boom up the canyon
And for a moment the misting
Turns to large patterings of rain.
Some tremendous thing’s advancing on us.
Like a valve opened
The darkness begins to send hail
Down in great volleys,
Pinging on every surface,
Tearing up the daisies.
Dark forms churn overhead.
Suddenly close jags of lightning
Arc across the sky,
Followed by explosions of open thunder,
Thoreau’s “giants rolling lumber
Across the great floor above us”