AFTER THE HURRICANE
Downtown piles of debris
water-logged mattresses
broken refrigerators
smashed furniture
memories dissolved in soggy photo albums
piles of mud and sand block beach roads
the low lying ancestral homes
reduced to empty wet shells
The machines and the workers
unemotionally keep clearing the way
for the home owners to return
to see what remains and what to do now.
I return to nature and the preserve
I feel the warm air and gentle breeze on my skin,
My feet create sounds as I walk
I hear the crunch of Pine needles and cones
I hear the crackling of the dried out leaves of live oak trees
I hear the snapping of fallen Pine branches
I hear the singing of returning birds and the buzzing of insects
I see the unbroken flexible palm trees
The dead fronds of saw palmettos.
The wet prairie has new rivulets weaving towards the horizon.
A lone great egret stands in the tall grasses
Still as a statue, staring and searching
The bright blue dragonfly dips over the fresh puddles
Around the pond cypresses .
The water flows high in the mangroves
covering the normally visible new black mangrove roots
a few broken branches block my way through
Below the surface the fish nurseries have been protected
Above the spider’s webs blanket the tunnel
as the blue and tricolor herons fly over my head.
Nature has weathered the storm better than humans!
MARSH TRAIL WALK
I remember a time years ago
arriving to work in Puerto Rico
to be stranded in the concrete hotel
by a sudden hurricane.
Watching in amazement the flexible palms
bending low, bowing to the wind
Loose wood and corrugated metal sheets
flying wildly around the streets
while fool-hardy people ventured out
with either a death wish or a prayer.
Now on MARSH TRAIL
I know Hurricane Ian was here
five days ago.
Swirling and howling winds
toppling trees and snapping others
seemingly a random pattern of destruction,
picking up surprised mullets and tarpons
throwing them onto the rocky path
now left as skeletons by grateful birds.
In the early morning sunrise
In the stillness and silence
the marsh full of clean water
moor hens and ducks float along
The tall mangrove rookeries
Wait for the sunset return
Of flocks of ibises, egrets and herons
To rest and shelter here again
as they did while the storm raged.
ANOTHER HURRICANE STORY
I am in Iceland (August 2011)
sitting in a cafe in Rejavik
finally connected to the internet
after a glorious week of hiking
Across frozen glaciers, steaming volcanoes and icy rivers
ready to go home.
The email simply says
due to Hurricane Irene
all flights to the US are cancelled.
For one week i cannot leave,
I bike around
seeing beautiful sculpture gardens
in a town now full of a music and poetry festival
I surrender to the icelandic way
when summer sunny days are long
a starting soak in the geothermal hot tub
ending with herring and beer.
©MartinStrasmore2022