I saw her there, standing in the shade
of a thicket; birch trees in the failing
Autumn. The long grass caressed her;
the wind stirred her hair. Lovely she, in
the failing Autumn, there, on the cusp of
winter. Lightning; storm on the horizon.
Green eyes lifted to catch the rain, falling,
there in the nearing distance. She breathes
in, out, her eyes fall closed as she tastes the
air; rain and soil, sunbaked in the past heat of
the noontime. Grass, wafting upwards. The
trees stir; the shadows of the leaves flit across
her form, face uplifted to the rising storm. Her
raiment snaps, back and forth; the winds uprising,
howling forerunner of the coming storm. Her hair
streams back, a midnight pennant, running out all
behind her. The roaring of the winds upsurges in its
splendor, its howling crescendo reached at last; The trees
bend, backwards in the gale, graceful in their dying,
leaves torn and scattered, out among the plains, and
across the rippling woodlands, soaring in the ecstasy of
the winds. She stands, there, in the moment before the
storm, straight she is, and tall, swaying as the trees wherein
she stands, pale in the twilight. The wind howls in wanton
abandon, wild and glorious; rain strikes the waiting earth,
the grass bends in homage, down before the torrent
descending. The lightning cracks in the darkling sky,
the thunder roars in violent time; the storm falls
in the failing Autumn; darkness comes
in the clouds obscurity, ebon in the raging heavens,
and all was lost there, save the wind, and the rain,
and the darkness of the storm.