A God in the Dark

Supplies are running out.
They might yet be replaced.
They might not. At a stop

Over the interstate,
A silver-bearded man
In leather ten-gallon,

Ponytail down his back,
Sharp black lizard-skin boots,
Mauve shirt loose in the wind,

Stands by the pruned ruin
Of a dead cottonwood,
Leaning into black clouds.

He holds an antenna
That he points at the clouds,
Piloting a glider

That he flies in circles
And loops around his head,
A steerable halo

To tempt the lightning with.
A long way from safety,
From home, one admires him.

He twists and turns and steers.
His green t-shirt flashes
When the sunset strikes him.

Someone watching asks him
The name of his toy plane.
He says it's Caedmon's Hymn.

Someone else wants to know
What that name means. He shrugs.
I have to go home now.