Storm - A poem by Caroline Cain Durkee

Storm.

I know that were I lost out in a sudden storm
Of shrieking wind and blinding sheets of rain,
And quick-descending, terrifying night^___
Expectantly you'd wait within our cosy room;
Then anxiously; and last, with ears astrain
To catch the answer to your wordless prayer^___
The sound of my quick foot-step at the door.
Until, when seconds, eons long and torture-packed,
Had crawled away and brought me not,
You'd wrench a-gape the smug closed door
And catapult yourself into the blast:
Clawing, tearing, fighting through to me;
Hurling, high above the tumult's rage,
Frantic, impotent defiance of elements that dared
Withhold from you the one you loved the best.
And, stumbling blindly on before,
I should evade you while my strength endured,
To hear the words of love
That stilled the rain for me and hushed the wind.

It is so safe, so calm, so lonely here^___
I wish that storm would come, my dear, my dear!

^__Caroline Cain Durkee

Contemporary Kansas Poetry
Helen Rhoda Hoopes
page 54
(Kansas City: Joseph D. Havens Company. 1927)