It lasted for three days and nights, the storm
that ended as we slept, our sleep sunk deep

in the deepening silence, stunned senses
lulled by an absence of racket, stacks of noise

keeled over, lifeless now as fallen trees;
salt clotting the windows, lace patterns

obscuring our view of the sea.
The youngest child was first to wake,

lay spellbound in her cot, was first to hear
the robin’s all-clear note, its strident signal

that the world had not quite ended yet.

Geraldine Mitchell’s most recent collection is Mute/Unmute. A fifth collection, Naming Love, is in the pipeline