the wind thumped during the night
on the window glass
on the roof above the bed
thumped the proper word
It didn’t howl whistle shriek
none of those regular words
it was more like the sound
of a carpet being beaten on a line
but that enough to waken
not the dead but the living
like any birds abroad still
owls perhaps or late roosters
animals on the prowl
cats asleep in front of a hearth
bees in the bonnet
of anyone prepared
with fevered imaginings
of spectral effects
to conjure up ghosts and ghouls
hours of sleep uncounted lost
to that beating though
by the morning only
one or two slates had slipped
few branches had been broken
little late washing was loosed from
clothes pegs and propped clothes-lines
the no-longer-used martins’nest
was swept from under the gutter
somebody’s wheelie bin
had rolled past static houses
nothing worse than that though
no cracked glass no riven roof
no hurricane then
no covid disaster come
to haunt disturbed dreams
in fact nothing
unutterable at all
Jeff Cloves
.