More Than Once

In this tree are no indications
Of the chosen. Only the shine and black
Where lightning struck, where I lean as if

Some answer has been given, and now my fingers
Move across the mark to learn the site
Where this will never happen again. And yet

This too is wrong; once started, the electric
Easily returns to the carved place. The wound
Wants more wound, until the vein that fire enters

Becomes what cannot hold, what is then destroyed,
Which looks again and again for more weather,
The random dust, the illumination of being

Used, and us trembling at the ruins,
At the remains of one who took on such light.

-Sophie Cabot Black