Just before a storm there’s that heavy aching feeling in the sky and electric air. It’s as if the god’s have eaten too much and they have swelled up the sky and filled it with their tautness.
The grasses, trees and shrubs are dead still and almost magnified – waiting – straining and erect for those precious drops of rain to fall upon them so that they too, like the gods, may gorge themselves on welcome water and be able to store up enough supplies to last them through the harder times in between.
I sat just outside to the left of my tent under a tree. I am watching for all the ‘damp animals’ – the one’s who like to frolic and dance amongst the drops as if giving thanks to those glorious gods who have so very kindly provided life support once again.
Gorgeous George is playing with some of the dry leaves that are beginning to stir from being whispered at a little too strongly by the ground winds that slowly pick up as the storm intensifies.
George is my kitten, only not so little anymore – I decided to bring him with me again – I had no idea that he would bring me so much comfort here out in the vast scrubland of Africa.
There is a small lizard; I can see him panting on a flat rock. His breaths are short – he’s sniffing the moist air- totally immobile. George has seen him too and stops fighting his leaf. Slowly he sinks a few centimeters closer to the ground – his eyes almost fully taken up with the expanded pupil. Wriggling furiously he prepares to pounce – still miles away from what he believes is an unknowing lizard. Changing tactics he stalks a little closer. The lizard has seen George now but seems unintimidated. Peering out from under a stalk of whispy grass, 2 out of ten for camouflage George, his whiskers straining, he leaps. His intense energy and passion catapult him well past the intended target which scuttles in between the cracks in the rock unscathed…for now.
The wind makes my little cottage shudder and shake, the rain pelts relentlessly on the roof. I can hear the rumblings of thunder as things thrash around on the outside. The palms’ fronds that had died during the summer have now been flung down to earth ungraciously by the howling wind. Not a bird in sight of course, they are smarter than us. I don’t know whether to be slightly afraid or think “fuck it” what can happen? But suddenly I feel like Dorothy. Even though I’ve turned up my TV, the rain is really loud and I can hear the wind still, and the thunder…It sounds like a train coming. I remember someone telling me that earthquakes sound like a train or huge truck bearing down on you. I wondered if the rain was actually hail – it sounded so hard but it just didn’t seem cold enough. I’m snuggling down – battening down those hatches. I think about the poor cows taking a battering in the storm. Nature is so harsh – we have summer and everybody’s happy and then Wham! So this is winter – we will blow the crap outta you, sting your bovine crowd and make things generally miserable.
Oh Hello Winter!!…. mother-fucker….mumble grumble…
A Wild Wind blows amiss
the plants and trees –
not a gentle kiss
Like a Louis
the Fourteenth dance
All the stately
tree branches prance,
Individual as the players
of many orchestrated layers
They fling themselves
around
Ancient roots hold tightly
in the ground
as the Wildest Wind
does its very best
to keep the tree branches
from any rest
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