Heaven's Window

Blue Lightning

There's no accounting for blue lightning.Tracking stations and radar can't explainthe why and where of its sovereign velocityinside the blue sweep of a summer hour.

This blue slash is more rare than a shark's jawor a gold tooth found at the beach.Its appearance is almost never recorded,and yet someone, every year, will be

out walking, gloriously drenched in sunand whistling good tidings, when,after flinting from cloud to cloudat an invisible amplitude, the jag of it

will tire of the horizontal chase and seekthe iron-etched ground. Then the man,who has no problems but the arc of his song,may never get to wonder why he must be

cartwheeled into fire on a periwinkle day.

Fire and Flood

This is the flood from heaven's window falling—The sound of mortar and steel breaking looseInto chutes of water and scattered animal tones.Everywhere you look the rains are scalding.

Towns, cities, countries far away sheerInside a swirl of mud, stone, and straw.This happened a long time ago, or was it yesterdayWhen seedtime and harvest disappeared?

I heard the chance creation of time's crest.Death joined hands with life and rocked thunder.Every stone had already passed through fire.The earth chugged with dark-gleaming breath.

This is the time when no morning glows,When nothing sweet lingers on the threshold,When the sun takes no comfort in the night.This is the flood breaking heaven's window.