"Struck by Lightning"

A poet is someone "who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times." Randall Jarrell, as quoted by David Orr in his review of Robert Hass's new volume of selected poems.

This is a sentiment I've always ascribed to and which was considered at length in a bestselling novel that I reviewed for another blog. So, the next time you see a bunch of old dogs standing out in the rain and not moving, you know what's going down.

lightning flash--
in pampas grass ensconced
a fifty year-old's face

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don