ARBITER: That which is swiftest may speak first . LIGHTNING: My tardy twin Thunder , resent me not for my swiftness . Bear with me patiently . I was made to streak . Seen as jagged slender strands , flashing boorishly . A snippet of intensity . Tarry for a twinkling , then I?ll away unlike the sun who burns through the life of day . My bolts set afire inconspicuous shrubs of lowlands and I have felled towering trees . No hiatus for hesitation ere the fateful sweep . Whipping lashes stay their distance from compassion . Dart as I may I cannot escape being a herald and accompaniment of Nature?s tempestuous ravings . THUNDER: Clarion of the heavens . Faithful and boisterous shadow of bolting lightning . Herald of advancing showers . Thunder I am named . I trail my brethren so faithfully we are often thought of as one entity . Some fear my bellowing more than whipping cracks from my kinsman. When I erupt , my sonic boom flusters and splinters quiet . To the faint hearted I?m the