There was at the beginning

A silent eruption.  Across the sky there were

Exotic plumb colored fist thick cumuloid

Giants that had crested the horizon.

They were no longer hovering

Exclusively on the shores of Jakarta.

 

Joseph Turner was walking his dog

A lithe, gangly limbed deer hound who

Had shrunken with the passage of days.

As he ever had, he was noticing the way

The light from the ebbing day’s fire

Recreated the shape of flower petals

That remained headstrong into the rising dusk.

 

But the patterns without any pre-conceived

warning or alert

Had shifted almost imperceptibly at an

Unexpected angle to the

Measured prism that cloaked the stem

And pistol of the drooping lillies

At the edge of the field.

It was then that he turned his head

To reconfigure and reassess the impact of the timing

Of the light cast downward in the evening.

 

The eruption had been cataclysmic.

The death toll in the chain of islands, on the

Peninsula, in the palaces and homes of

Dutch merchants, in the squalid set-to’s

Of the jodhpur-breached denizens

Of the subcontinent had been overwhelming

And compelling.

The undersea cables had been upset,

Severed and turned over preventing

The news from reaching the British Isles in

Time to preeminate the advance of

The amorphous manifestation in the clouds,

In the radiant glow of the sun as it

Travelled across floating ash in the atmosphere

To create the surreal canvas at dusk.

 

Joseph Turner spent

immeasurable moments in silent fascination

And contemplation.  His dog had long since

Sat down on the ground, then rolled

Over on its side, and had slowed its

Panting to match the heartbeat of its owner.

Shaking his head back and forth, rolling his shoulders

Into his neck, and shaking the stiffness from

His fingers and feet,

Joseph Turner beckoned his dog to rise to its feet.

 

He and his dog slowly returned

To his house on the shoreline, staring

With measuring eyes at the color wheel

In the sky.  Arriving at his front door,

Joseph Turner entered his home, walked

To the window that

stared out over the water and

The slowly cresting waves that washed

Up over the rocks, and began to paint.