Aron Rothstein

Force of Nature

Cloud cover over Etosha's tambootie woodlands. Eyes useless in the cave-black night. A vague awareness of having been roused – ears strain, catching a rustle in the near distance. Not a breath, yet the sounds of shivering leaves, nearing through the bush. A flourish of trumpets: "Beware, beware! Youngsters stay back!" On the sleeping rack atop the truck we lie like Lakota corpses, offered up on a scaffold. My spotlight probes, finds an eye for an instant among large gray masses merging back into the night, into a crescendo of breaking branches and trumpet blasts.

wind storm
I tighten the blanket
about my head