If I could tell you just one thing, I would
tell you about the light before a storm, glittering
with suppressed energy, colors heightened,
shapes defined, as clouds collapse over one another
on the western rim — the birds’ bacchanalian chorus,
the crickets’ and katydids’ and cicadas’
frenzied whir and buzz — then
silence.
A far-off wind rumbles low, growing ever louder,
rolling over the fields, and breaking over the trees,
just moments before the first drop falls,
soon a torrent. How air becomes liquid, drowning
the dessicated world, until you wonder
how breathing is even possible.
Surely nothing can survive this falling flood.
And, for a moment, some ancient animal
deep inside panics — anxious, claustrophibic,
desperate to flee — then
silence.
In a blink, each droplet flashes its captured sunlight,
and the renascent world blazes with incandescent steam.
A single bird calls, and then another.
One cricket tests his wings.
If I could tell you just one thing, I would tell you this.
(c) 2020 by Hannah Six
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