The Storm

The Storm Early in the morning mist When the iridescent sun-rays aglow, Pencil pierced through the dark cloud, Touching the earth in places; A gold like revelation, Suddenly! the rays got blindfolded, The far country looked gloomy, And clump of baobab hushed to the date palms, The covey of pigeons and parrots whispered, To the bevy of Sparrows and Woodpeckers to pause, With eyes thin and narrowed, To ascertain the magnitude of the storm; That loomed afar in the horizon, It came like the charge, Of thousand horse men, sand, dust, And a resounding gust, The trees bowed, danced and spun, Leaves flailing madly like, The kaftans of Muezzins caught in the wind, In the present penumbra, That enveloped the surrounding field, That gave way gradually, To pellucid air; Far off came the soulful sound of the rain, Pattering the roofs and pelting the window-panes, Like a million showering crystals; As it washed down, A year’s dust, languor and expectation, The ground’s dusty aroma, Gyrate like a mysterious perfume, And the dribbling water, Carry along slowly through, The sodden ground. Now the peasants may say For the dead dry, And the castrated branches: Thank goodness! Thank heavens! For the water of life For new grasses that shoot, And the Flora that bloom, As the wind whistled deviance through the woods And blast through the swept neighborhoods, Hearts beat quickened, Glances among the quietness; As whet ears, Listened to the crashes, And in that soporific, Spell-like foreboding, Between sleep and wakefulness, The owl, Perch deep inside a hole In the trunk of giant Baobab, Waits for the storm to blow over.