The Ouachita Forest In Tempest

A stormy Ouachita forest rages; lightning strikes, revealing GOD’s glory in vivid prose.

In our narrow valley, a powerful storm rumbled overhead and the Ouachita forest around me hummed under the storm’s relentless siege. The driving rain sliced through its tangled boughs. I crawled beneath the swaying canopy; the pine needles pricking my palms as the water streamed down my face. The needles were sharp against my skin and they released the scent of the storm-soaked Earth as they cracked beneath my weight. The ground beneath me shook as the thunder rumbled and growled. The oak leaves were quaking, but their whispers were drowned in the tempest's fierce scowl. My pulse was racing; my knees and boots sank into the mud’s cold grip.

The lightning seared and crackled across the sky, its jagged threads stitching closed the night’s black hide. The ferns were all bowing low. They’re heavy with the sky’s nectar as they’re lashed by the wind’s relentless scream. The canopy swayed like a ship buffeted in a tempest dream.

A deer bolted past, eyes wide, hooves pound; a fleeting drum's cascade. The shadows deepened and danced in silence while branches cracked. Each snap warns; each gust taunts me to turn back. I crouched and caught my breath as the storm’s heart neared, a frightful living beast of rain and deafening roar.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning split a nearby towering oak, and its wood splintered, showering its kin with charred slivers that erupted in flames, in flight. It was a glorious pyre born in this chaos stroke. I staggered, my breath caught, and my heart blazed with fear. I dared not move. I was pinned by the storm's raw, electric might. The forest burned in fleeting light, alive, unyielding, and eternal. I trembled, humbled by my smallness before GOD’s glory.

—Noisy Wren

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STATIC

The Aftermath of A Tempest Soaked Forest  (E) Wren faces a storm-ravaged Ouachita Forest and finds a spark with Shelley amid recovery. #2340593 by Noisy Wren