Too Small to Notice
Aug 30 2010


Somewhere on earth, lightning strikes
several times each second.
We get just a few storms, each summer,
so who would have thought
the sound of thunder was endless;
rumbling around the planet
uninterrupted
almost since it began.

Just as it’s always day, and always night
all seasons all at once.
So on the cusp of spring
the first wet snow has come,
succulent flowers opening up
as withered petals slump.
And a man and woman making love
her screams, his expert touch,
and someone mumbling final words
her Lord and Saviour snubs.

The noise is deafening
relentless.
And seen from outer space
the planet is electric —
jagged bolts of blue-white light
sizzling around the globe
like a high-voltage barricade;
the smell of ozone, acrid, singed,
smoke, where lightning hits.
The place must look uninhabited
its atmosphere lethal.
Ye we live in this pleasant greenhouse
under soft blue sky
a constant yellow sun,
in air sweet with hay
and grass, freshly-cut.

Because we are too small to notice.
Under this thin eggshell of air
that towers over us.
On this tiny point of land
on the vast expanse of earth.

I only hear silence,
basking in afternoon sun
in the last gasp of summer.
But somewhere, night’s begun,
a baby cries
uncontrollably.
And somewhere, lovers touch,
an endless ecstatic moment.
And somewhere, someone is struck
by a random heart-stopping bolt,
cracking the sky
under grey-black thunderheads.

Nothing at all is happening;
yet it happens
all at once.