An oak, already dead, grey and rattled
by countless storms, came to sudden life
when a bolt from the cobalt blue struck
and kindled a fire inside its trunk.
The fire never dimmed, blew out,
and blazed with a message no Druid left
on earth could interpret, glean meaning from
in a meaningless world.
Even rain, a hard sheet passing over
the field didn’t quench but only sparked
more flames…. Bolts from beyond are rare
but common enough if looked for
even among the weeds and trash.
The fire that burns inside a dead tree
is like a skull that laughs the world awake,
points of light in the hollows of its eyes.
William Miller’s eighth collection of poetry, “The Crow Flew Between Us,” was published by Kelsay Books in 2019. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Penn Review, The Southern Review, Sheandoah, Prairie Schooner and West Branch. Hei lives and writes in the French Quarter of New Orleans.