Hold the Lightning

Hold the lightning in your hands
Hold the lightning in the sky
Hold the lightning in your heart
Hold the lightning in your eye.

My only wish is to see you smile.
As close to my ears as a phone call
After a soft knock on the door
I wonder if you can stay a while.

The small finger you lift when
you set a cup of coffee to your lips,
The middle finger you use to put me in my place,
The forefinger that beckons me,
calls me to a special place,
The thumb encircled by a band of silver:
A hand that softly, slowly brushes against my cheek
when I have waited all night then fallen asleep.

Your eyes shine like twin nuclear reactions punctuated by
two tiny delicate (yet no less deadly) black holes.
This is the look you get in your eyes
when you see me looking at you.

We will stand and be true
together till the end of our mortal lives.
Till we stand at the threshhold of death's door
we will be true.

And what is beyond the door?
This question buzzes in my brain like a ringing in my ears
both annoying and unknown.
Still this question rings in my ears as if I were in the tower
pulling the bell-rope and summoning the townspeople
to high mass.

Will we be together when our children's children find that
door,
when they find that the door leads to another hall in another
house--
another home?

Will we fade from the earth with our love that lit up the
night?
Will we fade from the earth like an early summer storm?
Will we lose our sight as spirits, restless, homeless,
torn from all that kept us warm?

The sky is deep and blue. The clouds are few and far.
You know my heart because you have felt it too.

Then a drop of rain comes crashing toward the ground.
It falls on my arm. I wipe it away but soon it is joined by
another and another...
Many are the tears that fall from a sky-blue eye.
I could ask the reason, but I know why.

One jealous heaven against two hearts:
(Their's is no justice.)
We live in a world that is black and white.
The odds are against us.
A white moon hangs low in black sky.

Thunder shouts out across the plains.
It is the sound of loss and the sound of trains
shuttling memories to the waystation of my mind.
Thunder.
It is music and it is freedom;
It is not too far away and it is not too kind.

Ground lightning rushes up to meet
the splinters of hell's fury halfway.
Canons of white spark and flare into existence,
dark warnings for tall trees.
It could be that passion that brought us together
in the first place
or it could be the fires of hell that just want to be free.

And thunder rumbles and mumbles on after the flash
like words spoken from an Old Testament prophet
to a beggar from Canaan who is a little short of cash.
But some words are not easy to forget:

"So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land
of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He
buried him in a valley in the land of Moab: but no man knows
of his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was a hundred and
twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim,
nor his natural force abated.
And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab
for thirty days..."

My ony wish is to see you smile.
As close to my ears as a phone call
After a soft knock on the door
I wonder if you will stay a while.

Hold the lightning in your hands
Hold the lightning in the sky
Hold the lightning in your heart
Hold the lightning in your eye.

11.22.1997