coup de foudre
with dizzily precision
you came to me
your eyes closed
your eyes carefully closed
it seemed to me
that you came to me
then, your sweet, unworldly
caresses
and your infinite submission
seemed to be offered
to someone
behind me
and one day
in your delicate
amazingly deep eyes
I saw the image of the God
who had long
incidentally
transcended me
for a moment
"Coup de foudre" is French for thunderbolt, but it is used figuratively for a sudden unexpected event, especially an emotional one, and particularly "love at first sight." In Italian it is “colpo di fulmine;" in "The Godfather," Mario Puzo described Michael Corleone's first encounter with Apollonia Vitelli: "He found himself standing, his heart pounding in his chest; he felt a little dizzy. The blood was surging through his body, through all its extremities and pounding against the tips of his fingers, the tips of his toes. All the perfumes of the island came rushing in on the wind, orange, lemon blossoms, grapes, flowers. It seemed as if his body had sprung away from him out of himself. And then he heard the two shepherds laughing. 'You got hit by the thunderbolt, eh?' Fabrizzio said, clapping him on the shoulder. Even Calo became friendly, patting him on the arm and saying, 'Easy, man, easy,' but with affection. As if Michael had been hit by a car. Fabrizzio handed him a wine bottle and Michael took a long slug. It cleared his head. 'What the hell are you damn sheep lovers talking about?' he said. Both men laughed. Calo, his honest face filled with the utmost seriousness, said, 'You can’t hide the thunderbolt. When it hits you, everybody can see it. Christ, man, don’t be ashamed of it, some men pray for the thunderbolt. You’re a lucky fellow.'" In "Sempre," novelist J. M. Darhower described the sensation this way: "When love strikes someone like lightning, so powerful and intense it can’t be denied. It’s beautiful and messy, cracking a chest open and spilling their soul out for the world to see. It turns a person inside out, and there’s no going back from it. Once the thunderbolt hits, your life is irrevocably changed.” Lightning plays a role in many mythologies, often as a divine weapon that brings about instantaneous retributive destruction. In the 5th cntury BCE the philosopher Herakleitos extolled "the Thunderbolt that steers the course of all things."
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