The Rain

 
When the rain began, people rushed out to gather as much as they could.  It was real.  All denominations.  Money.
 
Wealth beyond avarice.
 
Then came the day it changed.  It burst into flames and scorched their eager fingers, sticking like napalm.  They ran for shelter into buildings that caught fire, into churches, into their cars.  They fled the city; took refuge where they could.
 
They sought the high ground.
 
At Angel Hill crowds gathered having abandoned their vehicles.  There it was safe, but vast violent storm clouds veered across the valley and away down to the west, lowering, ever closer; menacing.  Each separate soul watched in awe, awaiting whatever would drop from those clouds.
 
I waited too.
 
The rearing front legs of a white steed emerged, and the rider, too bright to behold, silver gilt, thundered into being.  Many perished at the sight of him.  His companion followed close on a chestnut battle stallion, striking red sparks on the earth, cleaving heads with a fiery sword.

As he passed he bent and breathed to me.
 
‘I have not come for thee.’
 
From the blackest of the clouds and blacker still rode Want, and emaciated all whom he had governed.   I saw their papery shadows, two dimensional, cast to the wind like worthless promisary notes.  In his wake the pale rider descended.  His horse, grey, tinted with all the phosphorous corruption of decay.
 
He had his rights.  I was bone.
 
I tried to remember hope.



* Oonah Joslin sometimes she loses the plot.  Sometimes she never had one. 
www.oonahs.blogspot.com Oonah is also the managing editor of
www.everydaypoets.com