Challenging Poetry

Portland, Oregon, May 1980

sometimes, at the edge of sleep,
I remember ashfall—
raining on the windshield
on the way to church while Dad
washed it away with a pitcher of water,
and then sat again,
his hair turned gray with ash
and little ashes clung to his eyebrows,
while my sister and I sat in
the back of the car, anxious
because the sky was falling—
we didn't understand volcanos
we were only very young
though our parents tried explaining—
so we drove slow with dark grey streaks
like mud under the wipers, wondering why
the world turned black and white
and gray, and
when it would turn bright again.

Prompt: April 11—Rain