Neutral Air

Aug 21 2011

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.