Hurricane Katia
12 September 2011 § 9 Comments
Someone else’s storm
The oak is full of surf-sounds.
The poplars hiss and twist
Branches bent like umbrellas
Blown inside-out.
Twigs, leaves, small branches litter
The verge and gutter,
Pigeons hurtle over the wood
Like artillery shells:
Even the drowsy river
Is stippled and disturbed,
Raked by cat’s-paws.
Clouds big as counties
Shutter the sun, sending shadows
Running like hounds over the plough
And under it all
A deep-drone fugue
For Aeolian harp
Played on gates and power lines.
The land shakes, waits,
Wondering what will break upon it
As force and fury tear across
Three thousand miles of ocean.
And here we are
Caught up again
In someone else’s storm.
Gonecycling 
Now my dear friend, Katia boomeranged all the way back across the Atlantic…this storm was on you side of the globe before it became ours…hope it doesn’t do as much damage as here…cheers!
🙂 I like the way you describe this storm, we have some of the remains here too, here it is even more someone elses storm. You wrote a beautiful impression of this depression with lovely lines. “The poplars hiss and twist” that is a great find! Apart from ships in need and other problems, storms are great, nature at her angriest. And she is right?
Katia seems to have blown herself out now; pleasantly breezy here in the south of the UK today. And your ‘impression of this depression’ is a lovely little poetic line in its own right!
Wonderful Nick,
I love the imagery you conjure up.
I hope you all have survived the storm safely
David
Battered but unbowed, I’m pleased to say. I think we got off relatively lightly here in the SE, but even so, it’s made for some interesting cycling…great with the wind behind me, but heck-on-wheels head-on!
This is a wonderful image.
It seems I am just learning the wonder of language although I have always known it at some level
You have used it to maximum effect in this poem.
Christine
Thank you Christine – as a cyclist and walker I’m probably a bit obsessed with the weather, to be honest, but I do enjoy writing about it!
I don’t think I’ve ever read a poem describing a storm quite so beauitfully as this. I really enjoyed the imagery especially the pigeons hurtling like artillery. Very vivid! I hope the weather has calmed down for you now.
Tikarma.
Wow – thank you Tikarma; what a generous and uplifting comment!