Shavuot (First Fruits)

In this year of infancy,
revelation comes to father and son
in the synesthesia of a thunderstorm.
We stand at the door,
our senses confused by the flashing,
the beating of the air against earth,
the crack of rain on a neighbor’s awning.
The boy sees it all for what it is:
another of the many beginnings of life.
He smells the purpling of the atmosphere,
hears ozone left burning all around us,
watches the drumming on all surfaces.
He takes it in the same way he takes everything —
the striped light through the blinds,
the always unexpected mooing of a toy,
Dad’s reappearance overhead in the morning —
How about that? he says to everything.
I never would have imagined.