nichepoetryandprose

Hurricane Irene is past and the skies are clearing after 44 mm of rain yesterday and a very windy night.

I feel so sorry for those who are left in misery after the storm, but our experience was rather tame.  My memories will be:

…bands of rain across the yard…

rain viewed from the window

…waking up to a lawn riddled with leaves…

leaves on our ‘lawn’ of violets…why do they all seem to land upside down?

…a clear sky in the middle of the night.  A star was shining through our window, made alternately non-existent and brilliant by the wild movement of the tree branches in the wind.  The star was so bright it woke me…

the trees above our deck rocked wildly all night long

…our demented windchime.  A mangle at the best of times, the poor thing is so tangled, it may not be possible for me to figure out the puzzle…

my poor tangled windchime …yes it is rusty but it makes a lovely sound

…everything saturated, the bird bath full of clean, fresh water and our driveway like soup…

bird bath and rain

My first knowledge of the power of a hurricane was associated with Hurricane Hazel.  I was born the year it hit in 1954 (October 15), but its ‘bad reputation’ lived long enough for me to hear stories of it as a child.  In its wake, 81 people in Ontario were dead due to flooding, and 4000 people in southern Ontario were left homeless.

Hurricane

~

Hazel

hurled northward

toward home

            and me   bewildered

                        wind at the roof

                        rain at the glass

                                    faint imitation

                                    of the rage

                                    described in the encyclopaedia

                        more like the silent eye

~

I turned the page

saw a photograph in disbelief

            a straw driven

            into the heart of a tree

            still standing

~

today, I believe

~

I stand still

while fury lashes around me

and in the quiet, I

am impaled

by a word

~

Published as: ‘Hurricane’, 1993, The Amethyst Review 1 (2)

(revised)

© Jane Tims