Fulgurite

Lightning roots deep into the sand, donning an instant sheath of glass: a seemingly pointless exercise in self-glove. Clap of thunder.

Could it be, though, that radiance tires of itself? Nowhere in the alleged blackness of space is there any relief from the ticking, pulsing, clusterfucks of stars except on cold planets. Who can blame lightning for burrowing in like a tick? Even we humans, full of darkness as we are, go on pilgrimage to the ocean, dream of girls with gills, get buried up to our necks in sand or swim with porpoises, whose capacity for joy we suspect of exceeding our own. We go back to the sea like adopted children paying a visit to our birth mother, hoping that she’ll show some sign she regrets giving us up: some whelk, some dead star. We tell prospective partners how we love long walks on the beach because it’s the deepest thing we can think to say.

But only someone who knows the shore well enough to recognize what she doesn’t know will stop to pick up an odd sandstone lump, & find that it hides black glass. She’ll sight through the short smooth tube, hold it up to the sun like a sextant.