Before the Turn

---

---

It starts before it shows.

Just before a storm breaks,
the air goes still.
The trees stop moving.
Sound drops out of everything at once.

Pressure builds
without direction.

The pause stretches—
held longer than expected,
with no sign
of what comes next.

---

Before the Turn
By Kerry A. Wiley

Time stalls just before it gives.
Nothing moves—nothing answers.

There’s a rhythm
beneath what won’t move,
each second held,
nothing to prove.

Tension unbroken,
not yielding,
not yet giving—
not chasing the flame,
only its after-heat,
held without release.

Tracing a pattern
before becoming known,
like water finding
where it belongs,
drawn where the warmth
has thinned.

No force behind it,
no mark in advance—
only a turn
beginning.

A word left waiting
at the edge of sound,
a spark that flickers,
not yet falling
in motion.

The moment holds—
then leans,
and goes.

---

Then the shift.

Air moves.
The trees move with it.
Sound returns in a rush.

The stillness breaks—
and passes through.

Branches bend,
giving in to the wind.

---