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Louisa And Nanny

“Come on, ” said Louisa to Nanny,
“let’s go for a walk before it gets too hot.”
So off they went towards the forest,
on a path they had trodden a lot.

Without giving a thought about the season
and the beginning of the monsoon.
They walked and talked for an hour
on that pleasant early afternoon.

Without warning the heavens opened
and it poured with driving rain.
A ferocious gust of wind blew them
towards the dense bamboo cane.

It came unexpectedly from nowhere
its ferocity almost swept them off their feet.
Holding onto each other they found shelter
behind a huge tree trunk of teak.

Lightening was flashing continually
in the sky and all around.
A bolt of lightening stuck a nearby tree,
bringing it crashing down.

The branches barely missed them
as the storm continued to rage.
The torrential rain never paused for a second
as they peered through the rainy haze.

They could barely hear each other
above the sound of thunder, lightening, and rain.
The wind suddenly stopped its cruel intensity,
it was possible to see a short distance again.

Because the whole landscape looked different,
Louisa asked, “Which way should we go? ”
“I’ve lost my bearings completely, ” said Nanny,
“in fact I really don’t know.”

As they considered their best options
on the direction they must take.
They simultaneously wiped their eyes
to make sure of no mistake.

Nanny couldn’t believe what she was seeing,
a pregnant woman standing by the fallen tree.
She stood motionless for a minute and said,
“Tell me Louisa, is that a woman that I can see? ”

“I’m sorry Nanny, I can’t see anyone,
but it is still difficult to see.
The lightening is creating shadows,
making things appear as they shouldn’t be.

As soon as they wiped the rain from their eyes
they were filled with rain once again.
“I suppose it could have been a bush, ” said Nanny,
but the woman was still there in the pouring rain.

Their only way out from their hemmed in position
was pass the woman who began to beckoned them.
Nanny couldn’t believe that Louisa couldn’t see her,
and told her that the woman was beckoning them on.

Again she asked Louisa if she could see the woman,
and again she said that she could not.
The woman in white indicated them to follow her,
and Nanny told Louisa the situation they had got.

“If there’s a way out of here lets follow, ” said Louisa.
Nanny took her hand and they followed the woman.
Weaving in and out, over and under the fallen trees,
she led them back to Louisa’s home in the sun.

The woman just disappeared leaving no signs of a storm.
On reflection Nanny realised she’d seen the woman before,
but what her brain relayed to her didn’t make sense,
and she couldn’t tell Louisa that she was the woman she saw.

poem by Orlando Belo
Added by Poetry Lover
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