An animal
set free by the sound;
thunder growls, and I to mania.
I set out from refuge
into the storm,
high tides in a low sky.
A flash—
I could not catch it.

Hail pelts, impales houses and me
as I reach out, breathing,
dying in darkness.
I flash a grin
and a laugh, blown to silence
by a crack and a rumble,
roar of a leviathan cumulus,
and a river of light,
stream for the monster,
stays seen for a moment
and I delight in it.

Rain pedals downward,
slaps false tears on skin,
then softens, and soundless,
so I walk to the road.
The afterglow, silver,
the mist rising
like ghosts from the ground;
past lingers, swirls,
evaporates
under the silver shine
of moon on the pavement
and the trees glistening in darkness.
And all things are angelic,
in the phantasmal scene,
glazed in petrichor
and an otherworldly quiet
that follows, always,
a passing storm.

I almost cry
watching god
make herself known.
And listen for
a proverb of silence,
birth and death,
beginnings and endings,
the sky and I.