The Days of Thunder

From the screen porch
I could hear the sound
of children playing down the street
out in their yard,
their talking and laughing
and squealing as children
at play are prone to do.
Also, the sound of gentle
thunder off further
in the distance.
I came back inside the house
to enjoy a wonderfully lazy day.
You took a nap in the morning
and I in the afternoon.
A day when you ask me
to talk to you like rain
and we reminisced late into the evening.
The dog was lying there like dogs always do,
with an occasional sigh or a minor
reposition or adjustment for comfort.
We sat in the room with the lights out
and watched the world get dark around us.
We discussed the difference between
truth in reality and the movie versions of life,
how we truly own nothing,
how we are only borrowers
just passing by, passing through
like a river always moving forward
toward an unknown sea,
how what we think is inconsequential,
as outside the thunder
now closer boomed.
The dog raised his head
only just for a moment,
then continued his rest.
The day of storms cooled
the heat of July.
We readied for bed.
We assumed that we would
awake to another new day.
Our confidence based solely
because we always had.
But there are many storms in life
and we are at that age
where friends are ever increasingly
dying around us.
We somehow deny our time
is coming too,
because it soothes the mind.
The same mind that knows
this storm outside will eventually pass,
and that children down the street
will be able to play again outside.
The same mind that knows death
is unavoidable and that knows the
ratio of human years to dog years.
I say goodnight and close my eyes
to the sound of thunder.