Thunder, not as a warning but as a laugh—
a full-throated, sky-splitting laugh
tumbling from the belly of the storm,
like the earth itself cracked a joke too big to hold.

It does not whisper; it declares.
It does not creep; it arrives with bare feet
and a crown of smoke,
startling the still air into movement,
startling the blood back into its wild rhythm.

The trees do not cower—they listen.
Their leaves twitch not in fear but reverence,
like congregants beneath a sermon
too ancient to be translated,
too holy to be ignored.

The river flinches, then remembers itself—
how to twist, how to speak in a thousand glimmers,
how to run with purpose toward anything vast.
Even the stones, quiet things that they are,
seem to hum beneath the impact.

And you—
You feel it in the chest first,
like a second heart waking up,
a pulse older than language,
older than name.

You want to follow it,
to chase the flash behind the eyes of the sky,
to stand where the clouds tear open with joy
and pour out all their hidden heat.

This is the rapture of life—
barefaced and unashamed,
shouting itself into being again and again,
in the only tongue the heavens trust.