His great muscled arm is drawn back,
The sinews strained and rising like flooding rivers.
A supreme tension is on the cusp of release,
About to hurl a bolt of lightning
At a tree clinging to a lonely crag.
And the lightning is about to pulse through damp air
And about to strike the tree’s farthest-reaching wind,
With all the weight of the earth reflected in it,
And all the power of that forceful arm behind;
The branch is about to crack in clean parts
And tumble down that interminable chasm,
And dislodge, with a subtle sound of shifting snow, the smallest drift,
Showing stoneflesh – a wound stirring Typhon in the mountain’s blood
And rocks and snow will awaken with searing roar
And dry waves of white force violently will
Become the mountain’s ruffled surface.
But that muscled arm high above
Is drawn back full of tension.
verso folio 