My Father Zeus

My father taught me how to smell the rain,

Indescribable with words,

But as familiar as my brothers.

It is the smell of emptiness, of anticipation.

If I had to describe it,

It smells like warmth seeping out from below the cold.

Something that should not be known.

Golden.

The world becomes silent,

Still.

Thunder in the distance, a low rumbling one may confuse for a pick-up truck or a cat’s contentment.

I can taste the lightning.

The tang of it on the tip of my tongue,

The might of the storm ripens.

The wind whistles,

A warning sound from a bird in a tree

As light flies across the swirling sea in the sky.

I scurry inside.

My father laughs.

He stands outside in the rain

Arms open wide,

Beckoning,

Face looking to the heavens,

Eyes shut.

As if he himself was hanging from a wooden crucifix.

A man bigger than life,

Smaller still, than the spirit he possesses.

An ancient god;

Zeus, perhaps.