A Good Summer Storm

A good summer storm
Without undue anger
Yet force enough to drive the rain
Should shake the branches
But not tear apart,
Not rip from the limbs their clothing
Scattering leaves as
If raping the trees.

OK. That got weird really fast.  I sat down to write an excuse for eating ice cream - without once bit of guilt on top - at ten o'clock in the evening. And then suddenly I'm sexualizing a storm.
That might not be a legitimate term; all the better since no one should sit down to write about ice cream and end up here.

Anyway.
Storm.
Nice, easy storm. Thunder, yes. Lightning, plentiful. Wind? Perfect: musical without moaning.
Listening, enjoying, cooling off in the mellow little storm - yes, it was just strong enough to be called a storm - I was reminded of rainy nights on family vacation.

Chased from the dark beach by the wind and rain, we sat around the table and played Gin Rummy [house rules], Hearts or Stratego (before Risk was invented, this is what brothers and sisters played when they wanted to alienate themselves from one another).

Even if one of our number didn't actively participate in the game [ahem! Dad!] they didn't isolate themselves in a quieter corner, but read a book somewhere nearby. Since it was vacation, we rarely had a bedtime, but usually had ice cream or popcorn.

When this nice not-quite-a-grown-up storm chased me from my porch seat, I realized I needed ice cream. Really. The best way to experience a good thunder shower is with a bowl of vanilla ice cream, regardless of what time of day it is. Consider it a moment of vacation.

Just don't try to write any free-verse poetry about it.

Like a Spoiled Goldilocks

Our little scrap of homestead suffered some storm damage yesterday evening.  We were at our friends' house, not having a pond party while we watched a summer storm blow through.  We need rain in this neck of the woods, so this storm was welcomed as heartily as a sibling that lives too far away.  It was a nice little storm at their house.

At our house, the storm behaved like a spoiled Goldilocks.  She claimed one attic window (left open to catch the slightest breeze) for her own, shoved down a tree in our front yard, and chose our new trampoline for a game of fetch.  Only our neighbor fetched it, not us.

The window needed to be replaced anyway.
The tree had already been disfigured in a storm long ago.  We were planning on taking it down before it took down something else.
The trampoline was about 3 weeks old, a mother's / father's day gift to ourselves, er rather, our children.  At least two of my not-so-little people cried over its loss.

"But look," we said. "We're all ok. No one was hurt.  Not even the puppy."  [Poor little puppy was mighty freaked out, however.]

As bummed out as we are about this {very} minor catastrophe, it is a good reminder that the stuff that decorates this life - houses, trees, yards, clothes, cars, trampolines - is passing.  Sometimes at gusts of 60 miles an hour.  If all of our efforts are focused on that which can be taken in an instant, we are guaranteed disappointment at some point.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

So the question is, what is treasured in heaven?