Storm Warning

You said that when the peacocks took to the trees,

and all the birds, finch and jay and swallow,

whirred upon the same anxious note continually,

that is sign of storm coming.

And so the peacocks were

sitting in the branches,

each clumped in the fruit of its mad comprehension,

each in its innermost breast

thundering like great falling stones;

and all the birds whirred upon the same anxious note

continually.

That night, a storm came.

If only we, too, could be sure again,

in this forest of desire and foreboding,

sure, unerringly sure,

when to go home,

whom to shelter,

what to seek.