The Secret Stead is the pen name of a UK-based writer and
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they call with a deceptive gentleness
(as they always do)
as tremors of sound
in ruffled sky
translucent as linen shot through
with lambent light;
then the wick of lightning ignites
to set a tree of fire alight,
its forked spikes crack out
unquenched with all their might,
and the gods let loose their horses,
unbridled from their Stygian stalls
to run out;
out into the firmament,
a pulse of rage
of hard hooves, as the lightning
strikes once more,
crackling trails furnace the way;
before burning out again
in a broken thread of flame
that point to some far off terrain;
2. ... a pause then, an ellipse
of deafening silence ...
then the BOOM roar of the gods
and the Crrr-ACK! of their whips
to spur the horses on,
churning the soil of the sky underfoot
in waves of frenzy;
a purple-bruised pummelled sea
shaken to its very ground;
battered and beaten all:
lives lost, once found; now drowned;
caught in the very eye
of the storm, the horses ride roughshod on,
hammering the expectant heart
into a furrowed earth,
gone to its other half
and the cry of the storm,
as heavy as its burden;
what has been unleashed now
the gods cannot leash;
a mane of firelight
consumed by night made uncertain;
3. ... and whether driven by anger
or the live-wire of desire, its passion
is a destruction --
where sounds and aromas heighten,
and the day's meditation waits for its release,
retelling its own story
only when the storms cease;
but like a poem in the subconscious
the sunrise shall rewrite itself;
light will rekindle what is left
of the charred logs of shadows
once the storm is over,
and the breeze will comb the ashes
of the funeral pyre --
to scatter and blow, and spread the losses,
and loosen the tightened cogs
of storm-worn bodies clogged
with wounds and gashes;
who having survived will know
how storms can give strength too;
the hard earned knowledge comes after,
that dawn will always rise brighter;
4. ... for storms pass at their last,
(as they inevitably do)
to let the brightened heavens unseal
the rains that shoot through,
on arrows of the surviving throng,
shot from the golden bow
of a rising Sun;
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and its farthest horizon
is always well won;
weathered scars are worn
as shining jewels in tribute
of hopes still living
like innocence in childhood;
and the silence that surrounds
the bare mounds is deceiving;
for they are merely warm
cots in sleeping,
for one day, on the right morning,
spring will come growing again,
with bright flowers in memory
of all who braved the storm.
Published 14 March, 2013
