Negative Ions

Photograph by Alex Shapiro

Negative Ions

Summer in these islands
is usually coated
with a thin layer
of silt and dust.

Mystical particles settle
from the woods
and the sky
and the unpaved side roads
that take my bicycle
to new stands of thistle
and gestating blackberry bushes.

Everyone’s truck is
known not
as blue or silver,
but “island colored,”
as taupey beige
nearly camouflages the hard metal
that waits in our driveway.

So it was a surprise
last week
and then again
today,
when heavy rainfall visited,
washing away the indictments
of July’s drought
and bringing moisture
to plants
that had been prepared
to tough it out
until the fall.
Between fits of downpour,
the sun blazed
and spent its Saturday
painting canvases of magic.

I love the rain.
I love the smell
and the negative ions
and the sharp color contrasts
that pop like fireworks
in front of my eyes.

South Beach,
lends itself so well
to all the vivid joys
I sense
when water pours
down from the sky
as well as
in from the sea.

Alex Shapiro August 2008