Shoes that danced and other poems / Anna Hempstead Branch [electronic text]

THE STORM

THE wind was a crowd, Wet birds were the skies, I marched laughing aloud With the storm in my eyes.

Part beast and part bird, A waif of the plain, My laughter was heard With the voice of the rain.

I thought I remembered A night long ago When our hoofs beat the sod And we rushed to and fro,

Our flanks steaming hot, Rain-driven and warm! I had almost forgot Till I ran with the storm.

I thought I remembered Black roads to a star, When the wind in our pinions Beat us up and afar.

How shrill were our cries, As we flew from the plain! Oh that road to the skies, Beaten up by the rain!

The flails of the storm Beat my soul from its mesh. It paled like a mist, Driven out of the flesh.

It flew through the night To my mother's warm hand, But I— I was abroad With the wind and the sand.

Unhuman and strange, 'Twixt the rain and the stone, I must flutter and range Through the dark all alone!

The darkness, The wetness, The sleekness, The fatness Of shapes in the tempest Submerged, with no name, As with laughter and shout

And a clapping of hands I danced in and out Or clove in the sands. As straight as the lightning I struck and I came — The storm was the thunder, And I was the flame.

It was thus that I ran To the House on the Hill, When the voice of love Bade the tempest be still.

Then I gathered me back From the rain and the sand To the soul held so close In my mother's warm hand.