Running for Shelter

July 20 2011

It rode in from the south

bareback

in a black furious cloud,

foam-flecked, eyes red

flanks steaming sweat.

The sound was incredible,

like a thundering herd

of buffalo

before the explorers,

filling virgin prairie

shoulder to shoulder

raising dark dusty clouds.

Skittish beasts

whipped into stampede

by premonitions of rain

an ominous breeze,

the pressure of air

plummeting.

There had been lighting

the night before,

soundless flashes in a cloudless sky,

hundreds of miles

and closing.

Now, it was upon us

unstoppable,

with prophetic darkness

the wind, chaotic

heaven, bursting apart.

Running for shelter, hunkered down

we could only wait,

humbly submitting to fate.

We watched

in wonder and awe,

like the first Europeans

who crossed the continent

and felt

unbearably small.

At least until the bison were slaughtered

steel rails laid

straight lines

set down on maps.

But not rain, or thunder

or furious clouds,

with all their pitiless power.

I began this poem with the basic premise of taking shelter in a storm, and hoped to somehow end up exploring the notion of surrender:  how nature compels us to submit, to become fatalistic, in spite of our hubris and illusion of control – that is, in spite of the fallacy of modernity.

Inexplicably, a horse metaphor pushed its way in to the very 1st line, which soon became a stampede, and then jumped species to become a massive herd of buffalo (or, to be technically correct, “bison”):  dark beasts filling the land, just as angry clouds obscure the sky. Instead of thunder, a thundering herd.

Which turned out perfectly, because the image naturally led me back to the early days of exploration:  to the idea of conquest, of man vs. nature. In the poem – and in the end, of course – nature always triumphs. We submit.