Heat Lightning on Lake Michigan

We witness, on the face of sunless waters,
gold-violet flares flash forth. Ions of ice
made flame, torching the black cloud-castled sky
with plasmic pillars thousand stories high
in silent blasts, like births and deaths of stars.
Mute war in heaven’s palaces it seems,
or cracks in what holds back an endless light.
We witness, thunderless, and contemplate
the spectacle of that unspeakable
which never speaks, yet shines upon the void
intelligible shapes. Silent because
Earth’s curvature prevents the sound from reaching,
or rather, consciousness is curved away
from anything a God might have to say.