Not to be the Sun

Some say I am light-
ning when I write, sure 
of the strike and the burn. 
Brilliance seen for miles 
around, but is it only for 
the space of a few seconds?

The accretions of language
through the years, flint
cobbled from the silt and 
mud of this life. Sentences
honed through practice—
this requires patience. 

This is not an ode 
to the ways in which 
certain hothouse plants  
bloom only one night each 
year— a grand display, 
followed by sad withering.  

Neither is this praise
for steadfastness or obscurity,
for holding still against 
a background, like the velvet
of moth wings melting against 
warm screens of bark.  

And this isn't mere 
argument for importance and
various other bold announcements 
of self— not to be the sun, but   
to have proof my small heat matters 
and emits a real radiance of its own.