A Front with Attitude

At nine last night, a front with attitude
came through. It got in our faces,
then turned its back. The heralding wind
of that first appearance was strong and cold.
“You’re in for it now,” it seemed to sneer.
But then it hung a one-eighty toward home.
“Well, that was quick,” we said, sighing,
sagging, in the still hot humidity.

Minutes later it returned to the scene,
this time from a different direction,
a bit to the north of that first short blast
--a small change of attitude, you might say.
This time, too, it hammered the land with rain,
and soon enough it added kettle drums.

In what seemed moments, it was on us,
a raucous concert, light show, music both,
its venue the venerable maple tree
right outside the upstairs window,
a tree that, if it fell, they said,
would fall the other way. Well, it didn’t
fall, after all, despite the fact
that our uninvited guest stuck around for hours.

“Say ‘Uncle,’ ” it finally jeered.
Well, of course we did, so it went its way,
laughing, whistling through the woods,
across the road to a neighbor mountain range
for another round of the echoing game.
This was, I say, a front with attitude,
and had it been any child of mine,
I’d have sent it straight up to its room.
But if, in fact, this front has family,
I hate to think what they are like.

--Arlington Literary Journal (ArLiJo), July 2010