The Greatest Show On Earth

Last night a slow rolling, rumbling
series of thunderous claps roiled the
sky like an endless fusillade of cannon
fire - while its companion lit up the sky
like celestial fireworks designed by a
higher order. Rain washed the dark
diorama, a drama presented courtesy
of nature, thrilling and impressing
mortals with the passion, the power
and majesty of magnificent direction.

Truly, the Greatest Show on Earth.

Throughout the night, into the morning
hours, the show went dauntingly into
overtime. After the applause, when the
curtain lifted to an overcast day, there
were, outside our windows, early spring
robins, in the branches of our ornamental
Sargenti crab trees, feasting on red haws.

In the drenched woods, bare tree trunks
black and glistening dominated the arras.
Where green lichen was fastened, it
fluoresced, soddenly. The delicate creep
of mosses on the ground, on bark and
branches glowed softly, brightly. Tiny
scarlet florets, fallen from Maples, littered
the ground, and tassels of Poplar and Birch,
pollen-laden; green, white, wormlike.

The creek and its many rivulets cascading
through the ravine have swelled, dark with
storm-tossed particulates; in the fury of
the pulsating waters, thrusting along fallen
twigs and branches. Candy-green, minuscule
leaves edge out from hazelnut and dogwood.
A soft humidity steams over the landscape,
as a green haze of awakening leafage emerges.