Nigel McLoughlin

A Storming

Often she would sit beside the fire

when the wind was rife

outside and rucked the trees

and hung among the tresses

of the grasses.

She would sit and listen to it all

as it rose and fell

about the roof; a storm

that pulled at the mortise lock

and shook the door, or squeezed

between the gappy wood of eaves

to invade the house.

Sometimes, I think, it raged

inside her too and dragged

the fire in her eyes like bellows

into life. Until, full blown

in its broiling, she’d go out

into the night to face it down

and I out after her to lead her home

would find her laughing with all her might

and her silver hair raging at the night.