Storm
There was a blackout between the hills that day;
only the trees, grey, wrung their hands like worrying ghosts,
when the sky blanched with lightning,
trembled, and shook sparks from its hair;
dark; with a riffle of wind and first rain,
the leaves whirling like hand signals, saying:
“Get back — get back — smell the wind’s trouble…”
and a bounding flash whitened the clouds,
and a terrified owl lost its way and fell headway
into the rain stampeding down the wind,
and bare white nerves of light broke free,
twisting among the clouds, and I was caught up
in convulsions of bright wings,
great gasps of air and steaming wind,
and billows of drowning sound
that rose, smashing upon the rocks of the world…
and a tree fell, once king, losing its crowned head in the abyss.