Taking it all in;
that ten-thousand-foot view.
It’s amazing
how beautiful
a storm is
from a distance.
The giant swell
of billowing thunderheads.
The twisting maelstrom
of dark purples
and sickly greens.
The lightning
and peals of far off thunder
that stir something primal
in our souls.
Something akin to awe.
Something not unlike
watching the Great Dragon,
which is called “Death”
stride passed,
knowing that everything
in His path
faces obliteration.
The true face of existence.
The strange juxtapose
of great human consciousness
and intellect,
and our infinitesimal physical being,
dwarfed,
dominated,
and destroyed
by every whim of nature.
The hurricane,
and the tornado.
The ice storm,
and the torrential rain.
The typhoon,
the monsoon,
the mudslide,
the forest fire,
the earthquake,
the tsunami,
and the Sun.
We are barely consequential.
Not really even notable
in the grand scheme of things,
but our consciousness
still finds beauty
in the form
of our destructor.
Awe and reverence,
captured in the death aesthetic.
We know our time will come,
and in the midst of the storm,
we will curse its existence,
but for now,
we admire it
from a distance,
knowing full well
the wake of tears
and broken lives
that it will leave.
Saying,
“I wouldn’t want to be over there.”
Placating to the obvious,
as if to deny
our primal fascination.
The storm
is a part of the universe.
While we
seem cloistered on this one rock,
watching Death move
across the landscape
and compelled
to watch it
come on,
we seem unaware
that we are experiencing
the visceral meaning
of existence.
HG – 2022
