The Awakening

Skylight unshaded and yet still it rests Dark clouds impeding the sunlight’s ingress To many it’s frightening, but in truth the lightning May, this day, the catalyst be This creature I’ve made remains where it’s laid I’ve poked it and shook it and I’ve even prayed But out there the lightning, alive and enticing Whispers, ‘why don’t you use me’ As I fight the notion of strikes from above I cannot bring harm to this creature I love But my every action evokes no reaction A flash gifts the insight to me For whistles and bells and deafening yells And salts that administer God-awful smells Should surely elicit response in the living What’s left but electricity So I fetch a cable, the thickest I’m able One end I fix to it’s neck with a staple The other end fed to the lightning conductor The rest is now not up to me A strike, the house quakes, the creature awakes It screams ‘I need food’ and then its head shakes I said it took so long to raise you, that now... You’re late: the school bus leaves in three I dedicate this poem to ‘owners’ of teenage sons.