Lightning The Way: Betsy Martin

Lightning the Way
by Betsy Martin

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A storm is promised
over the trees, beyond
the pond.

The others—the dog walkers
and baby-carriage pushers, the runners and strollers—
have in one current turned around
and flow against me.

At the pond the wind
makes gray goosebumps
that skim the skin of the water.
The birches swish frothily.

There’s someone ahead of me,
another lover of lightning,
thunder,

attired well for a late afternoon walk
in tan slacks and a black blouse
and bent forward at the waist as elders often are
after a lifetime of fighting the wind.

She limps a little
and hews the middle of the road,
going right for the heart of it,

so near us now,
a bolt almost pierces its boom.

I’m blown off onto a side street.
The last I see of my new friend,
she’s going calmly forward.