To understand our fear, we have to know from hence we come... 30,000 years ago.

Limpopo tree at sunset courtesy EyesOnAfrica.Net

Night of Terror

Lightning rips the fabric of the night,
piercing closed eyelids with shards of light.

The crack of thunder startles the womb,
her fetus kicks from pending doom.

The flash reveals huddled flesh,
in the tree from the lions' fresh.

Climbing to escape the lions' snare,
only to inhabit the leopards' lair.

Nervously picking flecks of salt,
the sweat of the day has come out.

The wind strikes like a wall of wrath,
tearing at all limbs in its path.

The huddled hang on for dear life;
tree branches whip and cut like a knife.

Stoned by hail before history's dawn,
it is all they can do to just hang on.

Raindrops come like slugs of lead,
pelting the cold and huddled dread.

Washing the stink of the dry season away,
soaking souls through until dawn of day.

When sunlight reveals a resplendent land,
and they can slip down to the day at hand.

Copyright 2006 © Ronald W. Hull

4/22/06