Thunderstorms scare me

Once I found myself in one,

way out in Swedish Lapland,

hiking from Vistas to Nallo;

open country, nowhere to hide

I crouched by a big rock, and waited,

at the mercy,

almost a newborn Christian

as the storm moved on over the glaciers

leaving me shuddering,

hammered by hard rain and hail,

rock 'n rolled by bolts of lightning

opening wormholes through space-time

around me

In the early 1980s
I was paddling a rented canoe
across the District of Södermanland
in Sweden,
in one serious go
all the way from Skebokvarn,
out onto the great Lake Båven
with all its islands, islets, capes and bays,
down through the smaller Lake Lidsjön,
continuing through the winding river Husbyån
into Lake Långhalsen,
and finally by way of Nyköpingsån River
through the town of Nyköping,
out to the Baltic Sea;
a canoe excursion that would take three, four days,
but which I did in one day and night,
getting into the worst thunderstorm in a decade that night,
causing a power outage all along the coast from Nyköping,
100 km north to Stockholm,
having me desperately pull up the canoe
into a thinly forested woods,
where I turned the canoe over and took cover
under it,
praying that the ground below wasn't too conductive,
as the bolts stood like blinding cracks in the semi-darkness
around me at 3 AM

 Another time, in the late 1990s,

out on a fierce bicycle training round,

in southern Sweden,

flashing 'cross flowering fields,

through coniferous woods,

a storm suddenly hit,

the first bolt directly followed

by a big bang,

like a sledgehammer on an anvil,

indicating a close call,

causing panic to rise up my spine,

as I deviated from the road,

toward a house up on a hill

owned by The Scout Movement

A car was parked in front of the house

The rain came down in torrents,

lightning flashed all around

I throw my racing bike,

ran up to the car and felt the door

Unlocked!

Got into the driver's seat, closed the door,

took a deep breath

Relief!

Nobody had seen me, and I'd seen nobody

When the storm ceased,

I got out,

leaving the car with a wet driver's seat;

probably a mystery for the owner

I picked up my bike where I'd thrown it,

continuing home to a warm shower,

with a feeling of bliss

The first thunderstorm that I remember

hit when I was 3,

at home in our country house

with my sister, ten years older than I

The house suffered a direct hit

I and Sis stood out on the kitchen floor,

holding hands

as bolt and bang hit simultaneously,

backlighting the moment

in a sharp life and death imminence

that blinded the senses

Afterwards Sis had to work hard

to loosen my grip on her hand

The bolt had hit the lightning conductor

sticking up from the roof ridge,

saving our asses

That was in 1952

Today, 5th July 2022,

on Anna's farm up north,

Anna in the stable, I in the house,

reading out of the just published Collected Poems

of Gary Snyder,

a violent storm pulled in,

ominous clouds overwhelming the field of view,

as lightning tore through a pine not fifty yards from the house,

cutting the electricity, having me reminisce,

still scared of thunderstorms