Fermata

Let us go then, up the long stairs
            and down the hall,
Through rooms in which a storm of air
            electrical

Takes hold, and windows fill with light
           that strips away
The darkness, reconstructing night
           as frozen day.

By morning, swallows caught by wind
          above the trees
Will stand as though their wings had been
          by lightning seized.

—Jared Carter

Photo by Bas van Oorschot via Creative Commons.