Somewhere over north Texas our airplane hugged the rim of a gigantic lightning storm in the clouds. A great light show: flashes of red and white popping in the clouds and turning them into massive Chinese paper lanterns.

I pulled out my camera and started to click away, hoping to catch a few streaks of lightning lighting up the clouds. As we circled the storm, our plane saw a spectacular light show. Passengers were pulling out phones, trying to take a few pictures of what we were seeing. I got lucky with my Canon 5D MKIII and a window seat.

“I take the form of an arrow of flame,
And pierce the clouds, and make darkness tame;
While the flap of Night’s dark, drifting sail
Shakes to the earth the heavy hail.

And often when heaven’s cloudless floor
Is as brilliant and bright as the inmost core
Of an angel’s snowy soul, I glide
From the lids of the west;—(thus the cheek of a bride)”

-Albert Pike, excerpt from “Lightning”