Sweet Refuge 

The wind ripped at the trees as if in anger
for some long forgotten feud,
raging simply for rage’s sake,
tying the unkempt grasses in knots
as it whipped across the land.

Bone tired, a solitary figure trudged 
against the weather’s onslaught,
taking sporadic refuge on the leeward side of trees.
Far better than where he had been
not too long before, he thought.

Lifting sleep-deprived eyes
above the collar of the coat
that he pulled tight around his ears
he caught the first glimpse of what
could just as well have been salvation. 

Glowing an almost eerie white
in the intermittent glances of the moon
there loomed a house
abandoned, or so it seemed,
and he felt his heart quicken.

Cautiously, 
he circled round the back,
approaching against the wind 
until he stood in full cover 
of the house’s looming shadow. 

Shutters banged against the clapboard
in an incessant drumming in the night,
the only sign of motion anywhere,
save for the bats that circled 
ominously around the turret.

With rising hopes, he crept 
a silent figure in the dark,
testing every step like eggshells underfoot,
and as the rain began to pelt against the earth
the door gave way. 

Into the cold and silent dark, he fell
and pressed his weather beaten back
against the barricade 
between his rampant foe, the storm,
and the haven safe within.

And there he breathed relief at last,
for no other place had ever felt 
as warm and welcoming as home
like this old abandoned house
— sweet refuge in the storm.


february 2005
©Janet Reid




Awarded by Friendly Musings ~ Feb 6, 2005