PAUL AND I CAMP ON HERMIT'S PEAK

How strange --
the night's surround of lightning
in sheets and stabs, glowing
in the towers of clouds, rippling
across the eastern horizon
in waves of orange, closing
us in a charged circle, thunder grumbling
in long booming circular cadences.

My son and I lay on our backs,
edge of the cliff, watching
for the subtle streaks of meteors,
pieces of sky falling in this 
grand display of light and sound.
One, two, three.
What we came to see.
What really didn't matter.



© 2004 by Richard W. Todd

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