Heat Lightning

Hello my friend heat lightning!

How beautiful you are!

All of the sky alighting -

Exploding shooting star!

Illumined and transparent

Bathing the sky like milk -

Weaving the webs apparent

Of white majestic silk!

White, yellow, luminescent -

You shimmer through the clouds!

Delicate, iridescent,

And making not a sound -

Shining each place, all over,

Completely unafraid

In platinum, in silver -

Like cobwebs overhead!

And through them beams like sunshine

The electrical charge -

The unremitting passion

Of universe at large!

And then the rain starts drizzling

And thunder then erupts

Gentle, magnetic, sizzling -

Like coffee from a cup -

And as comes forth the power

Which in it was contained

The sky, on midnight hour,

Erupts like cannonnade!

Like nerves spread out and screaming,

Like bursting light-filled veins,

The lightning punctures Seeming

And augments joy and pain -

Is frame for all illusion

With its electric light -

Who can bear this intrusion?

Who can believe this sight?

The nerves of man, spilled out

And bursting in the sky!

Hate, fear, worry, doubt

In heaven - how? Why? 

What makes you, and who are you?

You, madman's random trails,

You, baobabs on fire 

You, masts without sails!

You, turmoil effervescent!

You, agony and glee!

You, passion incandescent!

Are you now seeking me?

I'll see you and I'll feel you

I'll sense you in my heart

The truths you are revealing

That you wish to impart,

And with my feet on gravel

And head held out high

I'll watch the roads you've traveled,

Unraveled, in the sky.