Tremendous as a great primordial beast, you darkly arched
Across the Summer sky, obliterating warmth and light
From all the valley of the Trent, that lay drought-parched
Beneath you, swathed in dread apocalyptic night.

No countenance you had, but with your mighty concave belly glowered
Forth in grimly rippling shades of sombre black and grey
Shot through with jagged lightning streaks that disempowered
With paralysing terror all who fell within your sway.

Your drifting tentacles of indigo swept earthwards to the fore
To seize a landscape doomed to feed your devastating mystery
Of fear, till in a thunderous trice your seething belly tore
Releasing bounteous shafts of rain, as you dissolved into prehistory.

© Sanderson Nossai de Gagemon.

10th September 2006,
re a storm cloud seen over the Trent Valley on 17th August 2006.