SALISBURY LANDSCAPES POEM 9

The storm continues.

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“There is peace even in the storm”. Vincent van Gogh

In The Tempest

In the Tempest there is the sunshine too,

The raging storm is dark and crashes till the dawn,

But then we see the sunlight almost like a promise,

The rays penetrate the darkness revealing all forms.

While the storm is blowing we have much to

Care for our lives a still while the commotion

Continues ceaselessly a natural force not in

Our control moving all along while we wait.

But once the temper’s ague is lowered to a still,

There is such a brightness that we can see,

God’s will at work as there are clear skies,

And his presence is here not in anger but aglow.

There is no end to the heavens above us,

The sky is clear and we know to wonder

At the way that it is set out much like

Our lives following the route we were set.

“At that instant a dazzling claw of lightning streaked down the length of the sky. The hedge and the distant trees seemed to leap forward in the brilliance of the flash. Immediately upon it came the thunder: a high, tearing noise, as though some huge thing were being ripped to pieces close above, which deepened and turned to enormous blows of dissolution. Then the rain fell like a waterfall. In a few seconds the ground was covered with water and over it, to a height of inches, rose a haze formed of a myriad minute splashes. Stupefied with the shock, unable even to move, the sodden rabbits crouched inert, almost pinned to the earth by the rain.” Richard Adams