The Beauty of Destruction

With hands gripped tightly,
binding the rail,
the boy teased the edge of the slide,
standing at the highest tip,
his foot endearing to sway in the air.
And on the rail he sat,
watching, as always, the storm roll in.
In a wake of navy, gray and night,
the day began to bend to darkness,
if only for a short time.

The city became a shadow,
the life it once held dying,
changing sinister and gothic beneath the fury of the storm.

The gales finally burst forth.
As he breathed heavily,
arms outstreatched to hug the dark beauty as his heart raced to an unseen finish line.
The hands of a composer,
weaving the destruction before him.
The rain sweeping the urban dark,
with cackles of lightning and accursed thunder.

The boy, with closed eyes, took it all in.
Just him and the sky,
and the beauty of destruction inbetween.
And for a moment,
he commanded it all.

Once when I was 10, atop a slide,
on a playground, somewhere in a city,
where life's beginnings and ends
were forever's tomorrows
and tears shed consumed gutters.
And every clap of thunder became like a gunshot.
And every spark of lightning was the last breath in a now lifeless body.
And every rainbow that braved the sky after the storm was a heart beat which stirred anew.