For Thomas Edwards Wanning <br /> <br /> <br />Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily <br />like a dog looking for a place to sleep in, <br />listen to it growling. <br /> <br />Think how they must look now, the mangrove keys <br />lying out there unresponsive to the lightning <br />in dark, coarse-fibred families, <br /> <br />where occasionally a heron may undo his head, <br />shake up his feathers, make an uncertain comment <br />when the surrounding water shines. <br /> <br />Think of the boulevard and the little palm trees <br />all stuck in rows, suddenly revealed <br />as fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons. <br /> <br />It is raining there. The boulevard <br />and its broken sidewalks with weeds in every crack, <br />are relieved to be wet, the sea to be freshened. <br /> <br />Now the storm goes away again in a series <br />of small, badly lit battle-scenes, <br />each in "Another part of the field." <br /> <br />Think of someone sleeping in the bottom of a row-boat <br />tied to a mangrove root or the pile of a bridge; <br />think of him as uninjured, barely disturbed.<br /><br />Elizabeth Bishop<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/little-exercise/
