Once Upon a Storm

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(from 1993)

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When morning woke in silence

and you heard naught but a prayer,

when the earth was scented misty

came a tightness in the air.

And soon the winds were hammering

from sea and onto land

giving chase to charcoal rain

and knocking down what couldn’t stand

the battering and the beating

and the gusting of the gale

as steeples fell, and great old trees

splintered in its trail.

By evening the tempest waned…

the storm released the air…

and as darkness draped the silence

you could hear naught but a prayer.

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(c) 1993, 2016 Betty Hayes Albright

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(We’re in the midst of very stormy, roaring weather in the Pacific NW – hoping to get this posted before the power goes out.)

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Once upon a Storm – 2012 posting

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When morning woke in silence

and you heard naught but a prayer,

when the earth was scented misty

came a tightness in the air.

And soon the winds came hammering

from sea and onto land

giving chase to charcoal rain

and knocking down what couldn’t stand

the battering and beating

and the gusting of the gale

as steeples fell, and great old trees

splintered in its trail.

By evening the tempest waned,

the storm released the air

as darkness draped the silence

and you heard naught but a prayer.

.

(c) 1993, 2016 Betty Hayes Albright

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Tempest

(a Mayberrie poem)

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It confounds the senses,

that roar between starvation

and delight.

She thinks the wind

is gnawing down her door

and hopes the rusty hinges hold.

But wait,

was that a knocking?

She holds her breath

and wonders –

could it be the war is done?

Or was it just a vagabond –

a  famished waif in need of bread?

She wraps a biscuit in her apron,

throws it through a crack

high in the wall

then steals into the cellar

where she beds

among the jars of broken harvest

waiting for this hungry storm

to pass.

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©  2012   Betty Hayes Albright 

 

.(image via Wikipedia)

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For the next poem in this series, please click on the Mayberrie tab at top of this page for the entire list. I’m working (slowly) on linking all the poems for a smoother “flow”.

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