The Space Between Lightning and Thunder
Between lightning and thunder
There is space enough
For all the green land
Space for the lilacs
Space for the space
Between their blossoms
Space for the screen porch
And the porch swing
Where a boy sits
Holding a book in his hands
Space for the boy
Space for the book in his hands
That spans the war
Fort Sumpter to Appomattox
Half a million dead
It all fits between the covers
Of the book he holds in his hands
So why wouldn’t it all fit
In the space between when
He sees the lightning
And hears the thunder?
But this poem
He’ll grow up to write
Doesn’t fit
Does it?