The clouds are blue with electricity and rain.
I have bared my head, and walk in a clammy afternoon
with purpose, quickly, skin and clothes stuck with sweat,
like someone searching for treasure, or for a lost child,
desperate under this watchful, unanswering sky;
leaves turning here all point in a single direction
as something touches faintly the hairs on my arms and legs:
it lifts hairs on my shoulders, hairs on my chest,
but without laying hands on me, my unclean flesh
slickened and used and tired, and sore and very old,
that watches out now for a first glance of lightning,
not knowing when or from where it will come, but knowing
that wisdom is to expect death, and fear the goddess.
The clouds are blue with electricity and rain.