Hurricane Wait
You’ve lost all your sense sir
Once named by meteorologists
after the most disruptive forces in their lives
- their wives,
Then occasionally after men
to show that you were expected to be particularly
- aggressive.
Now names just alternate
to demonstrate
equal hate
Shows we expect equal danger from
every mystery at any rate
This time the plan will work
North Carolina juts out just far enough to deflect you
That’s what it’s meant to do
Carolina was put there to protect the Old Dominion
one more reason it’s better to be Virginian
I digress
This is still going to be a mess
Just a bunch of rain this time
still anxious how much of our town sits on the waterline
I stepped out front at One AM
looking for signs like religious men
But I am a man of science so I look to bands of clouds
sounds of winds registering aloud
directions they blow and rains come down
Not just now
Not now
No, this is the other thing
During the day there was a misty rain
and driving home the first lines in the clouds arranged
Twelve hours later and there should be
the barreling down of forces screaming death
But all the world here is holding it’s breath
Message on the phone says
“Don’t worry about me it’s quiet here”
but I know I can be almost silent if I know there’s a
- a hungry tiger lying near
So many move to my town
want to pretend one can take this laying down
I know I’m looking my fortieth tiger in the twisty eye
even if this one skates on bye
I will continue to withhold my sign
- until late Saturday
See...
- the calm wait is not a sign
that everything’s fine
This is the test of your patience and faith
The storm you can’t see is there
it’s lurking around the corner
like a graveyard wraith
unfed it does not simply stalk away
Now a second science comes into play
snakes and deer left the neighborhood during the day
birds and bats don’t dare flap a wing
despite the still air - that’s the thing
And all stridulating crickets and grasshoppers make demands
of negligent gods of whom we know little
and without understanding
human lovers’ patience grows brittle
And somehow Maryland thinks it’s time
to tell Virginia how to read Carolina signs
- of Florida weather.
September 6, 2019