Sight

by Kenneth Steven

The strangeness of that sudden rumble
coming from nowhere yesterday late.
I ran out and stood watching
the faraway threatening skies,
but around us an eerie brightness –
the stillness that comes before the storm.
The first flicker – a blink of silver,
seconds later the answering thunder.
I went in and watched from the window,
looked out and into the distance –
the lochan like a light blue stone
brooched in the tweed of the moorland.
The swans in the mirrored water,
so impossibly white to the eyes –
like the remains of snow after winter,
carvings that dipped and bent;
together yet ever themselves –
heads stretching into the west,
into the rain that came from the silence,
the veil that swallowed the day.