lightning strikes splits me open ozone sharp and
pungent filling the skies before thunder can do its
tepid heralding my favorite view out a window is
a grey expanse ripped open by electric lavender
knives but i had never imagined the atoms
their trembling after vibrating with exothermic
pangs begging to turn back but this is all there is
the mean bifurcation of a trunk and janus with head
turned not looking into the past but gaze palsied
rooted to the present burning foliage or to future
growth yes even from the charred remains tiny
rootlets spring upwards feeding and reveling
with no sense of decorum at all this is what
happens when the tree falls in the wood
with no one there to bear witness no one to
weep just mundanity crawling along like an infant

– a a khaliq

Author’s Note: A morning lightning storm is one of my favorite kinds of weather, as destructive as it is by its very nature. “janus amid a thunderstorm” explores the binary interpretations we have of events like these, especially those that haunt us in the habitual present. The destruction of lightning can give way to new life, and all of this beauty and terror is mundane. How shocking.