Above the peaks, a meaningless cumulonimbus
splayed its parting parts, enclosing the late sun,
whose shafts erupted through the central tendrils,
lighting them silver too intense for word.
Two dark starlings skipped random as stones over water
into the darkness advertised by this glory.
A swarm of bull gnats clouded my head while the starlings
disappeared, and first I thought they danced in my eyes.
They swarm, I recently learned, to attract a female gnat,
who will choose one from their multitude.
When I focused again upon the departing sun,
whatever I had seen had changed beyond recall.
