4.06.2022

something is gathering force

The cat knows something. 
See how her ears flatten 
as she listens to the sound 
so sinister her fur stands
in a wind of wariness.

The sky knows something
taking on a red glow
as if a fire burned
behind those metal clouds.
They might be smoke.

The crow suspects,
rasping warnings that scrape
the air raw, chafed with menace
then flapping off like a black flag.
Even the crow abandons her nest.

Something is gathering force.
Somewhere an earthen dam
of circumstance that protected
invisibly upstream has sprung
cracks like lines on a palm

that can be read, danger, danger.
Somewhere the water is piling
up in the dark, roiling,
thrashing. Cracks widening,
that nameless dam buckles.

Downstream the nape itches,
a cat twitches as if bitten,
a crow flees on the rising wind,
and a woman clutches herself at a window
waiting for the stranger to walk in.
 
[Marge Piercy {1936- } 'A Twitch in Time', from What Are Big Girls Made Of?]

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