Thunderhead

By Archibald MacLeish

Do not lay there in the darkness silent
Hearing his silence by you in the dark.

That sky could tell you that there must be magic
Waiting as well as working to have miracles—

Thunder in earth for thunder in the air
To bring the flash down and the blinding glimpses.

Rock and loam must smolder with desire
Before the haycock of the heart is struck on fire.

Credits

Archibald MacLeish, from Collected Poems 1917–1982, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1985.