lightening stricken

by michelle lachut
(Fort Myers, FL USA)

Thirty years I've said thank you, and thought of you often
I feel you all around, and cry in storms, for your sacrifice
reflecting then, in amazement, on the day you died
the way I never even knew you were, before that day
wondering at the reason, we lived on without you
if you know, or see us from the sky, or wherever you are
walking aimlessly, I wasn't alone, the way you were
yet unaware, I carried the beginnings of a first new life
unnoticed, I questioned your belongings, for your identity
I feared for you, as you sat thinking on paper
with it, your towel, yourself, and nothing else?
Truly a premonition, as I bent down to a soft, pink shell
in the moment before we traded places, in a flash
it changed my outlook on life, when it took yours
the deafening sound and brightest light I've ever been in
miraculously distracted, by the glitter of art in nature
I no longer stood taller, and was thrown, but not chosen
everyone I've ever loved, or thing blessedly known
since then, I owe, for all my life, every grateful heart beat
and so on down, also do, those who live lives from mine