The Gathering Storm

The Gathering Storm
---beginning with a line by Theodore Roethke


All day and all night the wind roared
in the trees, and the thunder woke my sons
and my wife. I held the older, she soothed
the baby, and the blue lightning flashed
its thin blue knives.

No, I lied. There was no wind and no trees,
no storm, no thunder, no lightning,
no knives, and my wife and my sons slept
easily. Awake, insomniac, enraged, I lied

About thunder, wind, lightning, knives,
and trees, because it's easy to lie
about death. A friend from childhood was
forced to his knees by two children
who shot him in the head,

And my battered tribe mourns his loss
tonight, but my big brother should tell
this story. He knows about thunder, lightning
and knives. All day and all night the wind
roared in the trees

While my sad brother made plans to carry
another coffin to another grave.
Arnold, my brother, knows how to bury
his friends. He's buried many. I count names

And faces, and lose track of the number,
but Arnold accounts for all of our lives.
He buried Lightning, he buried Thunder, and
he dug their graves with his thin blue knives.

While my brother mourns, I lie about death.
Death is not a wind roaring in the trees.
Death will never take my sons from their beds.
Death will not force my brother to his knees,

Make him beg, and shoot him twice in the head.
Death will not slash children with its thin
blue knife. Death will pass over us.
Death will relent. Death will not break
down the door and come for my wife.

All day and all night my lies roar in the
trees. I thunder and wake my sons and my wife.
She holds the older, she soothes the baby,
and I am blue lightning
flashing his thin blue knives.


Sherman Alexie

from his book FACE.