Under the shelter of the summer storms clouds he waited, held within a womb of humidity, his body slick with sweat.
As he drew breaths, held deeply then exhaled slowly, the skies rippled and pulsed, heaved and held back their waves before splitting above him in a gushing of waters.
The tackiness of his sweat sloughed off like old skin beneath the baptism of new rain.
A midwife to his own rebirth.
Renewed skin, perfect in its newest gloss, dressed in the lifetime of variables: family, work, love, pain, futility, faith, doubt, hope and sex, until worn threadbare, stained and tattered.
And he would wait for the next storm, for another baptism, another cleansing, seed to impregnate the soil with his vision of himself.
* with acknowledgement to Bruce Dawe and Shakespeare
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 