Waking To The Storm

I

They say the wind whips but it doesn’t.
It hits like a wet sheet upon a metal pole,
slapping in a rhythm only it can understand.
Laced within the slapping are the nettled
raindrops, cold and sickle sharp.
Like mischievous cubs of ursine mother,
together, they come marauding.

The storm. Quickly she comes. Born of
Neptune’s peeving, angry and wet, she bares
her bones upon the world raving. Beast and
woman both yet not one, this thinking/thoughtless
monster rips a weary man from his sleep and
sends him thinking of those still on the sea.

II

Fools go down to the sea. Drawn by the
fascination or driven by the need, we pit
mere yards of wood against oceans of deep.
We hunters of pelagic flesh bed down
where there will never be a home.

To some we are two different breeds,
the weary and the worshipful. To the storm
we are equals. Motes to be flecked, insignificant.
We see the infinite when halcyon spells
occur, and fear the immediate in other times.

III

Sine and Cosine of disaster, the waves tower
or toss us up. Countered by endless hillocks
we yearn to be hidden. Dwarfed by narrow
valleys the cry is for the mountain top. Buried
in foredecks of frozen hell or balanced on
the precipice we count on fortune to serve our turn.

Holders of stolen fruits, we wonder what fare our
passage may tally. Casting our lot, we think on
those who paid the final toll. Word stolen cries
communicate an urgency without human message.
Together we are alone.

IV

Battered sideboard and roofing wearily shoulder
the assault. Saltbox shackled, my shelter grips the
soil with taloned foundations and leans into the
squall with an aged merlin’s grace. Fingers of wind,
muted into drafts, scratch my feet to let me know
that even bundled, I am never safe.

Pity for the sailor. Pity for the lost.
Wonder renews itself to the torment of the senses.
Drifting within the howling, I listen to branches
buffeted into drumsticks beating a wind-code:
messages from spirits loosed upon the tempest.
Listening to those painful sounds, I simply yearn for sleep.


Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner