The Day before the Storm

I went to walk the day before the storm

The sky too fiery blue, the hot gold air

Hushed with a stillness like a bright alarm,

Weather too sultry gold for breath to share.

I saw the bay's blue waters ebbed beyond

The lowest spot where fallen tides should be,

The wave-marked mud flats flaked off like a pond

Drying with summer though smelling of the sea.

Heat ached upon my eyelids. People trod

The earth bewildered by the pressure of light.

So in a burning forest from his hole

The fox runs blindly in amazed mute fright.

- So fish gasp choking in a lessening pool.

So men await a sign, a storm, a God.