Prelude to Thunder

The pigeon-flight turns, silver-white
against the lowering blue-black sky
and is away, away.
The sultry tent hangs over all,
a darkened, heavy-laden pall
encamped above the land.
The fields!  A living, luminescent green…
and round, beneath their shadowed sides
the last brave birds and insects sound,
and hush, and hide.
Then all the scape is still –
creature, blade and leaf.
Till, wondrously, a wind rolls by,
a rush that nods the topmost boughs
and is away, away.
Behind the distant ashen hills
a wild light flares and in an instant
dies, and all the world prepares;
awaits the angry thoughts of God.

From ‘Nature’