Hurricane Lodge

All those wing-nuts who take the huge snows in the mid-Atlantic and elsewhere  (but not in New England although that may be about to change) as “proof” that global warming isn’t real made me think of this poem from last Fall.  So with bare ground galore in Vermont at present, here goes:

All Climate Change is Local

What is it with these winter
moths who gang up
on the glass porch door
like j.d.’s hanging out
at the corner store, smoking
and intimidating passersby?

The dogs whine to go out,
but the unsightly patchwork
of November visitors –
it isn’t winter after all,
not even cold –
gives us pause.
Still when nature calls,
we all must listen.

Sometime last century
we found ourselves walking
the main street of a small village
white and green houses
completely snowed in.

Front doors vanished
behind upside-down coconut ice
cream cones waving over blinding sands.
There were no visible routes
for ingress, egress, any gress.

The town library waged
a brave and unsuccessful battle
to keep its books available to residents
before it finally gave up,
conceded that only a January thaw

of biblical proportions or a spring outbreak
of Gulf air, would free its face
to the world – both as likely
as every elementary school student
coming down with the flu at the same time.

Those who wanted
to borrow a book, visit
in a neighbor’s kitchen
or deliver a package
would have to find another way.

What is it makes my daughter
love them so? Rarely sweet,
far from uniform, they sport
night-colored globules
like miniature tumors
yet are said to fight cancers
and other diseases with the strength
of gods. Stroke those mismatched
jewel-drops too hard
and get an early summer
embarrassment
of riches: shiny,
gentle explosion
paints your fingers.

What are they talking about?
They’re talking about dying.

Those giant sunflowers, flattened
by the hurricane, spring back
when gently pushed into place, but beg
for the tallest stakes imaginable;
there isn’t time before the ferry leaves
to run Down-Island to Shirley’s Hardware.
It’s get those supports
and barely make the boat
or take the kids to the Flying Horses.
Let those sad yellow faces
go, choose the future,
face the consequences.

One night
of seven
or eight thousand
so far
that might
have been,
was not, last.

Next morning
sunbeams play,
jewels out
of the safe
deposit box.

“Thank you Ma’am,” Uncle
would say on those one lane
island roads, cart tracks really,
when an ongoing vehicle
would pull off and let him
pass.  Sometimes, it’d be
“if you please” instead,
when the dust was highest
and it wasn’t clear which
car would give way
first.  Bear in mind this happened
at about the pace of turtles
courting, males facing females,
slowly nodding their heads up
and down, side to side
hours at a time.