Testing
The auditorium
Of the south coast
For sound,
The thunder coughed
And its gutturals
Joined the white light flash
In a sierra
Of atmospheric drama:
Tarpauling the wind,
The nervous clouds
Stretched grey tendons
In confusion,
Fleeing the sky
In tumultuous silence;
And now the river,
The soft, hillcupped river
Became a merry-go-round
Of madness;
The white-faced waves
Reared on strings
And, lifting the yachts,
Dropped them;
Callously they let them fall,
Rolling them on shoulders of hissing foam
To a shuddering descent into the troughs.
Through the night,
The wind and water played Macbeth;
But with the morning
The new day made amends;
At midday the scampering children
Hounding jellyfish in the shallows
Had forgotten,
And two vessels, staked on the shore rocks,
Seemed a small price
For that night of destruction.
