«كما أبرقت قوماً عطاشاً»
Like lightning flashing before a thirsty people.
The poem evokes urgent need and expectation. A flash may arouse hope of water, yet the desired relief does not arrive. The point is not simply the visual feature of brightness: it is an unfolding situation in which hope appears and is frustrated.
The need, arising expectation, reversal of hope and failure of attainment form a unified intellectual scene. The rhetorical effect comes from the intensity of deprivation after the suggestion that relief might be near.