Lightning
(Hour 4 – Half Marathon 2021)

By David Hirsh

However you conclude
We will applaud
Some will stand
Others will stay sitting
The sound of your voice
Carries across the hall
Built for acoustic marvels
I, myself, am in awe
This is the third time
I’ve seen you recite
And each time
My mind dwells
In the words
I know so well
I wander around
With you
On your journey
Through the cities
And the places where people dwell
And the forests
Where trees, animals and forces of nature dwell
You show photographs
For those who need
Visual assistance
I prefer the words
That dwell between the silence
That live because you know how to hesitate
You talk about how you were almost hit by lightning
As a metaphor
And how you took long walks
To avoid playing cards all night
You were an avid loser at poker
Although you could read the other players
You felt bad for them
You weren’t that kind of killer
You would take a camera with you
And write about the pictures you took
And show those pictures as a slide
But I would rather hear the silence
Between the words
Than see what happened
To the tree you hid under
To avoid the rain
After it was hit by lightning
And continued to smoke in the fog.