Copper

This time of year
the trees turn into copper
as if they beckoned the lightning
to burst forth from their fingers.

A blanket of molten
that spreads across the
pocked and scarred mountain
valley beneath my dangling feet.

I can see the cloud ahead of me,
but I fail to realize it’s all around me.
Despite sitting within, I feel exposed.
This sensation is much like love.

Each little person is a flicker in time
but what significance that flicker can
affect; I wonder if my time is mine
or am I a tree in a forest?

I want the lightning no matter how briefly
it burns; the leaves quake and die in the breeze.
I am small.