Skinny Dipping in a Lightning Storm

Ryan Robson-Bluer

  I

 

pale bodies chalking the water,

their gum-pink shoulders rolling

in the dark like celestial objects;

our nakedness, and the earth’s

 

lightning snaps like a blown bulb –

furious sky-god –

so those with their backs to the horizon,

are suddenly crowned: blazing aureoles,

wrists crossed on their tailbones

as if waiting for judgement,

handcuffed in awe.

 

half-crystallised, sharply inhaling, alarmed

that beauty isn’t peaceful, but shocking,

that we’ve crossed a line:

and we’d suddenly rather be on the shore,

where a fire burns on the sand

and nobody dreams

quite this big.

 

 

  II

 

the curtain tore open

and showered rags around

our hoary moon-shadows,

and we stood, for the first time,

like matchsticks in the infinite

black water.

 

and the earth made clear

its groaning, its sickness,

its fury – impossibly close.

we’re cemented to our chest

in amniotic fluid

as the earth reveals itself:

rolling over, laid bare.

and we, the firstfruits,

stumble, dazed, to the shoreline,

groping for the light,

bearing the weight of ourselves,

of our opening.

  • Author: Ryan Robson-Bluer (Offline Offline)
  • Published: October 1st, 2022 04:46
  • Comment from author about the poem: There was something so incredible about that moment: standing there in our most vulnerable state, completely naked and exposed, shivering and solitary, and watching as the sky opened up in this huge display of power and energy. It was like the earth revealed something.
  • Category: Reflection
  • Views: 32
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Comments +

Comments1

  • Moom

    Beautiful and powerful, I felt like I was there.



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