A world lit by lightning

Where we are all running
toward something
an old tree in the horizon
cracked, lit up
harsh white lightning.
Or are we running away
In the end -
it doesn't matter.

A poem to the city. It has been raining a lot these days... especially in the evenings. I love it - the post-apocalyptic feel of swirling leaves, a watery cold sunset, purple skies somewhere between dark and light...

Flashes of lightning in the distance - rain dripping from green leafy boughs of trees, and against the curtain of water blurred lights by the sidewalk lamps...stretching away.

And i am reminded of Tom Wingfield's hauntingly beautiful closing soliloquy in the Glass Menagerie....

"I didn't go to the moon. I went much further — for time is the longest distance between two places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box. I left Saint Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out!"


For me, in the end, we all seek forgiveness. For me I just want to be forgiven.