Rain thickens toward mid-morning as the ex-hurricane moves through. One cricket still calls from the shelter of peony leaves.
hurricane
Rain from a named storm seems special, like strands of hair from someone famous. Two spring peepers are calling, and faintly, the phoebe.
Calm. Sandy’s center must be close. The top half of the dead elm tree has blown down, breaking the back of the old dog statue.
Weather report, 11 a.m.: Light drizzle. Gusts of wind up to 3 MPH. The still-green lilac looks freakish now against the mostly bare trees.
A restless wind turns over leaves and passes through the house, as if searching for something it can’t find so far from the tropics.
High cumulonimbus drifting northward is the only sign of a hurricane’s distant churn. Tiny figures of birds head west toward the open sky.
Where daffodils bloomed in April, goldenrod sways—a more worldly yellow. The distant hurricane makes a roosting monarch flap its wings.
Hundreds of miles to the southeast, a hurricane churns. I sit in the dark listening to scattered rain, a faint rustle of a breeze, crickets.