Antics in the Sky

Johannesburg is renowned for it’s electrical storms in the summer. I remember those big black clouds moving in. It felt like somebody had shut the curtains and turned on a vacuum sealer. The air was being sucked out of the sky by the approaching weather front. You could feel the air pressure drop. The darkness was comforting in a way. The black sky tumultous and streaked with lightning. The lightning would come closer and the thunder become louder and rolled through the heavens like a wave in the sea - you could follow it with your eyes. It is so dramatic. You could smell the nitrogen in the air and taste it on your tongue. In my youth, the storms wouldnt last very long - maybe an hour or two. After the lighning, thunder and rain, the storm passed and the skies opened up to their previous deep blue. I always had the feeling that the blue was cleaner and more vivid than before, but maybe that was just because the world had been washed clean.

This poem comes from a particularly memorable storm.

Antics in the Sky

The black sky, lightning bleached,

abducts the air and electrocutes

it to the ground with a crack.

Drama abounds in the stained sky.

Trees bowing to their master the wind,

Breaking under his demands. We

are all captive to the antics of the

god’s in the sky. Some awed, some floored.