Here Comes the Lightning Again

Here Comes the Lightning Again

19990208.1345

Standing on the iron-rich soil
In the driving, deliciously cool wind
The skies boil (with potential -- that's a play on words)
The scrub pine right to my left
Creaks and warns me
that I should not be here

I ignore it, just like last time

I study the swirling of the static-lit clouds
Bright against the dark sky
Mirrored in the choppy surface of the lake
Symmetrical
As above, so below

The ground reaches up through me
(The ground -- that's another play on words)
Meandering upwards
A strand of ionization
Visible to the naked eye

I reach upward with it
Remember what happened last time
Chuckling about what happened last time
When God was the bastard I deserved
And, yep, it's happening again

I laugh. But I'm quick about it.

Above and below reach toward one another
They shake hands with me, both at once
They shake me with their hands
Good to meet you again
I'm glad you remembered the spot
They converse, reminiscing about the last time they met
The sky, hearing an old favorite joke
Doubles up in laughter
It cracks me up
I double up as well
And the belly of the ground shakes
At its own jest.

The pine merely groans
having heard it before

I, the junior partner of the trio
Not counting the tree-o
Perpetual kid brother
Am passed from hand to hand
One to the other and back again
Overwhelmed, exhausted
Horribly tense, but happy to be included
In a meeting with my betters
However casual

Maybe when I'm older
They'll offer me a job in the
Family business

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