After it’s all over

There are sedentary signs
just before. A magnified expectancy
when quietude hangs, still as lint
on cobwebs in the corner
of the shed. Only an intermittent
rustle attends our listening
prodromal puffs of wind
like the awakening butterfly
mistaking glass for air

The anarchist trees begin it.
A collective fling of leaf, twig
then missile branches aimed,
it seems, with some deliberation. 
Runaway detritus follows after
barrelling down empty streets
slapping, smacking blindly
into posts, poles, panes.
And there at the stop sign
in the now riparian road
a river roars past, raging
against all confinement.

After its all over
we’ll breathe relief.
Begin afresh, clearing,
mending fences
picking through broken pieces
- but there should be no analogy here
no storm's ever contained in a teacup
no dust ever really settles.
Shards of words hurled
cut and scratch
insults, injury, blame
bullet hole the walls
old scores like scars
visibly heal over.

One for Open Link Night where anything goes though Grace is host and featuring poems of Louise Gluck who has recently died aged 80. “The advantage of poetry over life is that poetry, if it is sharp enough, may last,” [source]