stormchaser (november, 2011)

and I in silent wonder stood
hove as a storm-splayed tree
swaddled
in the black breath of night

"Oh, there you are"
as the line
slid into silver perfection.
quick.
too quickly
for the ember and ash
for the hissing crush
of words forcing their way
down into my lungs

grasp those phrases
snag the cord
with branchflayed hands
hammer the reflection
of light and heartbeats out
into that canopy of clouds

it's there.
just there
in the breakwater crash
the firstflight of birds
returning to other places
and the shatterdrum of ice
lapping at the shores of a lake
like the fiery thought of peace
on the frozen form
of a stormdreary
never-thought-it-would-happen
troubled dream

and even as the cloud passes—
the chaos of a fresh-sewn idea—
the drawing-in dark
whispers back to life
those daylightsaver seconds
when the sky was just the sky
and no embers creaked
in their gyre and gravity
or flickercrack fissured
the simple silence
of a second of a skydrunken night