The Calm Before the Storm
The calm before the storm
Was what I felt today
The silence was so perfect
That it filled me with foreboding
Yet when I looked all around me
All I saw was peace and beauty
Then suddenly over the mountain top a flash of sheet lightning blinded me
And froze me like a deer in the headlights of its doom.
I sat in shock [because the sky was still so clear] not quite believing my eyes when
Another flash, and then another, and then another
Like clockwork, every 2 minutes, for the next hour
And as the evening darkness enfolded me
The flashes got brighter and brighter and brighter
And the calm deep and deeper and deeper
Until I knew that the deep foreboding I had felt
Was also shared with the world around me
In the forests and on the seas and in the sky
This is the time we now live in
The calm before the storm.
I wrote this poem while at our cottage in northern Quebec while the fires Maui burned – completely unaware that on the other half of the world 36 people had just died as the flames consumed the town of Lahaina. Were we connected? Perhaps, but only in the abstract way Quantum Mechanics tells us. And yet, the lightning and foreboding I felt were real, as real as these words I write on this page to you. The poem was for the right side of your brain and in the spirit of balance here are some headlines to communicate to the left side of your brain. To communicate what? That the calm before the storm is ending. That the storm is upon us. That I hope you are prepared for it or be swept away like so many souls were on Maui.
A person stands outside of a damaged home after a tornado hit May 13, 2023, in the unincorporated community of Laguna Heights, Texas near South Padre Island. A series of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. resulted in $34 billion in insured losses during the first half of the year, the highest amount ever for insured losses in the period, according to Swiss Re Group.
Recent Headlines
At Least 55 People Died on Maui. Residents Had Little Warning Before Wildfires Overtook a Town
Rising Flood Risks Threaten Many Water and Sewage Treatment Plants Across the US
Insurance costs in Canada rising as ‘catastrophic events’ become the norm
Norwegians Prepare for More Flooding and Destruction After Days of Heavy Rain
Unprecedented Levels of Damage From Storms This Year Is Upending US Towns & Insurance Industry
‘We are at war’: Greek PM orders new evacuations as high winds and heat fuel wildfires
Researchers observed the lowest concentrations of dissolved oxygen ever recorded in the deep waters of the St. Lawrence River
Mass Extinctions Are Accelerating
Loss of Soil Nutrients and Accelerated Soil Loss in India [and Rwanda and ….]
The calm before the storm is over.
The storm has arrived.
References
Leave a Reply