Neutral Air
Waiting for lightning
to pass,
losing track
of time.
Although I’d like to imagine
this time does not matter
in the accounting of a life.
As if the world had temporarily stopped,
and I was privileged
to watch.
Something barely possible
when I was a younger man.
So I feel unrushed
infinitely patient.
The way a liquid takes the shape
of its container
I defer to Nature
— watchful, passive
thrilled.
No one wants to attract attention
in an electrical storm.
So I make myself small.
I imagine vast intransigent forces,
the atmosphere
boiling over.
Great masses
of super-saturated air, over-heated moisture,
the friction of clouds.
I’ve been told
the initial bolt is invisible
forking down.
That lightning shoots up,
returning from earth
to complete the circuit.
So lightning always strikes
out of the blue,
not only unheard
but unwitnessed.
Or was there a sizzle
of unsettled air?
The burnt smell of ozone?
The downy hair
on the back of your neck
tingling with static charge?
Was there even time to think?
Memory
wiped clean.
And after it’s gone-off
megavolts of electrons, that were forced apart
now flow freely
tension released.
Leaving the world
unnaturally calm.
The way water bottoms out
seeking its level.
The way youthful excess
eventually settles
down.
As suddenly as it came, it went.
The downpour spent.
The neutral air.
Benevolent sun, again.
And the world seems in balance
at rest.
The storm has passed
and lightning spared me.
As distant thunder
is warning some other
stuck in its path.
Who missed the blue-white light.
Will remember nothing
of sound.
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