Nick Conrad

Above those stony ruins that strewed
a thin beach, atop granite-walled cliffs,
pines rooted, campion bloomed. That first night was so
bright with light we saw the islands off coast,
the heron nests, treetop-lodged. It was there,
atop those wind-blasted heights, we first took hold.

Something
that like the trumpet sun
shot gold the night;

something
wind buffeted, having been
now waits to be;

something
like a cicada
wakes to its own song.

A blue gray piece of sky,
some lost thunder cloud moored
among the mallows, some shadow
cast on the green algae
that beads between stalks. Startled
into flight, wings noisy prop blades;
then, a pause to glide and gaze,
form a bolt of lightning,
cry a kind of thunder.