Posts Tagged ‘windchime’
in hurricane rain
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…
…waking up to a lawn riddled with leaves…
…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…
…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…
…everything saturated, the bird bath full of clean, fresh water and our driveway like soup…
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