Stones Are Lightning, Gold the Sweat

Are there no stones in heaven
But what serves for the thunder? Othello 5.2, 242-3

Lightning’s the line-graph on the spreadsheet
of the clouds that, down-trending, strikes home
like cannon-shot or stones. It’s a spasm
man tries to anticipate with artillery –

Franklin’s lightning-rod, however, was pre-emptive,
the cheapskate. Secretly he thought
thunderbolts could alchemize the stones,
give each corpse-cold* Puritan his gold-hoard.

Lightning wrecked the house of false composure
descendants built, their daughter’s singsong
shattered as she retracted hands from any metal thing.
Lightning taught the fatality of the touch.

And as he mopeds to the brothel for children,
a tourist judges Ankgor Wat a load of stones.**
Unbeknownst to him are golden thrones and turrets
the Khmer Rouge sought to overturn with thunder,

since gold that neither greased the wheels of trade
nor alchemized the stones beneath could only char.
Gold, thought certain cultures, was the sun’s tears.
Other cultures, wiser, thought it was the sweat.

* Emerson on the Congregational Church, heir to the Puritans
**details digested from an article on child prostitution in Cambodia in The London Independent (on-line)