Little Wings of the Storm
#4 of Poetry
Foreword:
A terrible storm may rattle windows, blow leaves, and streak with lightning, but can be memorable for different reasons.
Another poem out of me! This is another free verse work; I avoided a specific meter and other schemes to try and capture and represent a song, a certain song that I may or may not have written about in the past . . . <cough cough> have you listened to it yet? <cough cough> In the end, though, I don't really think this piece is a success. I like it, but on personal review, I just don't think I did a very good job. Meh, not bad enough not to share; I want to improve, don't I?
Anyway, if you have something to say about my work, go ahead and tell me! Drop a comment, shoot a message, come to my house and tell me face-to-face, all perfectly acceptable (though I'd prefer you'd call before you came to my house)! I appreciate comments and criticism, I really want to know what you think, and I use comments and such to improve my writing. Once again, I'd like to thank several friends and of course Mr. Eupherious for looking over my work and making sure it didn't suck too terribly.
Enjoy the poem!
Content copyright Sneeze 2010. Please don't use without permission.
Little Wings of the Storm
I sat in my room one autumn twilight -
attempting to do some work -
when a great storm blew in, the greatest I've ever heard.
This cyclone's power completely threw me;
whenever I recollect the winds
and the lightning and the rumbling thunder,
it returns me, in my mind.
The winds start off light and unremarkable enough,
but the way the autumn leaves dance,
reds and greens and golds and blues,
carried by unseen hands, guided
up and down, circling in great spirals and shallow twirls
colors changing, shifting supremacy
but never fighting
those unseen hands moving the leaves out of love, not fury,
plucked around on the strings of a giant's guitar.
I can see deep purple thunderheads off in the distance,
a backdrop for dancers such as the leaves
as the gusty winds tilt the church bells in the church tower.
Lightning streaks through the deep purple and
thunder rumbles out, boom after boom striking my chest
plucking my heartstrings with their resonance, low and pure.
The winds begin to gust
the dancing leaves moving in currents and streams, subtlety lost in flashes
of rustling color
as the church bells sound out
silver percussions echoing through
the low howl of wind and boom of thunder.
Two birds fly from the church tower
taking up the delicacy the leaves have lost,
feathered spirals and loops recognized by all men
instead of the blind man's dancing colored leaves
and the invisible musician who crafts their dance.
Lightning flashes and cracks as the thunderheads consume
my little room in their fury,
the thunder the drumbeats of a god and
the colored leaves a blur of redgreengoldblue in the wind's
howling resonant shrillness,
so swift and strong the church bells call out their
silver sweet strikes above it all.
Rain falls, adding to the cacophony, the climatic assault of terrifying fervor
And it is terrifying -
the thunder's boom rattling my heart
the crack of the lightning shearing my joints
the wind howling through my ears, piercing my thoughts through to my consciousness -
But I am not afraid of the scare in the scene, I cannot see it
for the church bells ring out, loud, clear, silver above it all,
and the birds swirl and play in the sky,
Little Wings beating resolute with ease and freedom in the gust and violence
perfectly at home flying with the other
and I can hear them singing,
not adding their voices to the storm's opera, no
their little throats too small to penetrate the sheet of sound that is the storm,
they are part of the orchestra itself
the love in their dance not a symbol of perseverance but
a gesture of what truly lies beneath it all.
I close my eyes, listening to the great work of a divine artist, the
wind and thunder
and birds
and those pure, silver bells.
And the more I recollect the storm, the more I think
of You.