Devastated

The thunder peals so loud I hold my ears, and shut my eyes against the fulgent flash, as lightning slashes through the blackened sky. Oh, please, have mercy, give me one more day. I've laid my stillborn son within her arms, cocooned in quilts she'd sewn before the fire. The agony consumes my tortured soul as rain for which I'd prayed now fills the grave. Yet hard and fast the raindrops come in sheets to wash away the earth I'd dug in scoops. Exhausted now, I stare, as mud slides down into the hole in ugly rain-swept globs where lies my precious love, my hope, my life and beats upon the withered stalks of grain.