I rubbed my eyes. The lightning
Caught a curving line
Of tents and lost them. Under
Drowned boughs that thrashed the air,
I heard a double thunder
Over a forest of rain.
Even now, I share
The lives of two that went,
Pinned in their canvas house;
A bole lies across the tent,
And a nest of splintered boughs.
The storm begins to drop
And looks now with an eye
Of winter on wet twigs,
Topless and stripped trees
Like a row of wooden legs.
Last night, when I rose up,
Lightning could magnify
My apprehension: these
Remain one glinting day,
Day after day, when night
Seems far. Beside its prey,
The wide trunk’s fallen height
Forced me back. But morning,
Glistening and slate-gray,
With muted sunlight thrown
From masking clouds, climbs over
The half-dark earth, dark stone,