#desertlandscape — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Slow Mover @[email protected] · 2026-08-21 · 13:36 UTC

A Stray Thunderstorm

A stray thunderstorm visited this morning—

as though it had wandered from the flock,
lost its place in the procession of weather,
and found itself alone above our town.

It arrived without ceremony. No long darkening of the horizon, no warning drums rolling in from the west—only a sudden stirring of leaves, a low mutter beyond the rooftops, and then the rain, falling hard against the windows as though the sky had remembered something painful.

I wondered what makes a storm stray.

Had it broken away from some greater disturbance? Had the wind carried it where it had never intended to go? Or had it come precisely here, to this small patch of earth, bearing a message meant for no one in particular?

We often speak of straying as though it were a failure—a departure from the correct path, a drifting from purpose. But perhaps some things must stray before they can arrive. Seeds stray from their fields. Birds stray from their familiar routes. Thoughts wander from the work before us and discover something hidden. Even grace, at times, seems to stray across the borders we have drawn for it, falling on the undeserving, the unsuspecting, the unprepared.

The storm did not remain long. It spent itself quickly, leaving puddles trembling beneath the trees and drops shining along the telephone wires. Soon, the sun returned, almost apologetically, illuminating everything the rain had touched.

By noon, there may be no evidence that the storm was ever here.

But for a few moments, the morning was interrupted. The ordinary world was shaken awake. The garden drank. The dust settled. The air became new.

Perhaps that is what a stray thunderstorm is for: not to alter the whole season, but to interrupt one morning—to remind us that even a wandering cloud can carry thunder, that brief things may still be powerful, and that what appears to have lost its way may arrive exactly where it is needed.