Lightning Strikes the Pond

Lightning Strikes the Pond

Cloud's black blanket
across the sun, bolts
blitzing cracking the ground.

Twenty-eight swimmers splash
in the pond, jumping ashore
avoiding flash and fire

stalking the waters onto
the beach where dancing and
laughing have ceased amidst

the screams of burned skin
over bodies in the sand
a dozen of them curled up

struck by an unseen hand
of fate or randomness
descending on the arch

of their lives as the pond
returns to stillness matching
the dark imponderable sky.

— Peter Y. Chou
Los Altos Hills, 7-6-2007

Andrea Hollander Budy's Workshop:
"Small as a Postcard, Large as the World"
(7 minutes writing exercise from "Untitled Poem")
("Lightning Spreads Out Across the Waters"
by Patricia Fargnoli, from Necessary Light)
31st Foothill College Writers' Conference
Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, California

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