Gold Vein Lightning, New & Selected Poems by William Kemmett

GOLD VEIN LIGHTNING

It’s a fraction
longer than a crack
across the sky——
a bolt split a rock
on the side of the
hill and turned
lead into gold.
There are things
you just know.
It’s a question of
topography. If I
found it I’d take
only what my arms
could bare and then
burn the map.
Surely greed is not
a mountain when the
stake is held to
a limit. My sons have
no sons. There is
no craft to pass
on—other than to
love what you can do
with what it is you are.

—(Excerpted from Gold Vein Lightning, William Kemmett. Igneus Press (2019))