Driving to Telemann’s Music, A Kind of Cold Lightning

Like the road

the music bridges

miles of seeded fields and flooded

fields in late spring, a long, cold spring,

but Telemann is warm as cold lightning,

like the bolt my aunt tells me about,

the one that struck the Martin Luther Church

in Fredonia, North Dakota.

Hot lightning would have set it on fire.

Cold lightning thrilled the walls

and gathered the members

to special thanks

and made them think

how lucky they are

to be found and struck

but not struck dead.