he worked his bellows until the flames caught.
When they did, a heat came over the earth
and became overwhelming; everything heated up, suffocated.
Both man and beast sweated under that heat.
Clouds came and went,
wandered back and forth, up to the heavenly fountain,
taking in water, gorging themselves fully.
It was these clouds laden with water
that began to trickle, then vomit, then dart at the earth
as though to punish it for its hidden faults.
The Blacksmith in the sky then set about his work.
Hammering at his anvil, his power brought out
waves of sparks which turned to lightning on earth.
Hammadi could make out six kinds
whose glimmering arrived before the sky burst.
Most of them coughed fire.
He saw others take the form of gnarled branches of the khaya tree*,
giant branches descending to the earth.
He detected yet others, breaking through
two clouds like a network of paths,
then breaking in two over an immense plain.
Hammadi discovered beads of luminescent lightning
that blinded him like a mystery-jewel
that a sublime force haunted, agitated
distractedly between earth and sky.
If the spaced white lightning bolt
had enchanted him as the brilliant
and abundant ones had mystified him,
Hammadi will never forget the sudden flash
of the ball of fire that appeared to him
as though to guide and assist his spirit.
After this beautiful scene of diverse lights
the storm broke, the sky met the earth
and weighed down on it with rain and wind.
Columns of water could be heard falling
and thunder sounded like gunpowder.
Hammadi'had but to close his hut
in order not to feel the effects of the storm.

Notes
* Cailcédra: khaya senegalensis (tr.)