The Electric Storm |
Tonight the sky is an electric dream
flashing its giant camera with all its might
with an unceasing photographic mania.
Children hide their heads under the pillows
and parents pray to St. Barbara*
from fear of such magnificence.
Electric dreams pass into impregnated skies
Full of young fantasies in unexplored oceans
where many a Columbus’s hopes sank.
November is the month of the dead,
when flower shops sales are at their peak
when Catholics burn thousands of candles
hoping to save souls, even those already lost.
And this feast of lightning sounds
like sacrileges fireworks, angry Gods,
telling us we behave like the Pharisees
giving us a last chance for eternal life.
(*When there are thunderstorms it is a common
tradition of the Maltese, especially of the elderly,
to pray to St. Barbara for protection from the damage
that lightning can inflict on their homes.)
copyright 2017
Raymond
Fenech |