Hello from soggy SW Virginia where the gray sky is hanging low, heavy with rain. We have seen a few surges of Florence’s bands. A tease of more to come. She’s a a femme fatale having claimed a dozen or so souls during her unwelcome visit to the south. Now her shadow looms at our door. Her intermittent tears flowing ever so lightly as if she wishes to convince us that she is not the heartless tempest others say she is.

We are not buying it though, as waves of fearful hosts strip the market shelves of batteries, bottled water and the ever popular milk and bread. Candles poised to spend their wicks in the darkness wait expectingly on mantels for their moment to shine. We are ready or not for her here in the valley; for raging downpours to saturate the mountains whose soil is already swollen from record breaking summer rains. It is expected that our shallow basins and sleepy rivers will fill to the brim or more between now and Tuesday when Florence exits to the north.

Such is the lot we have wrought with our ignorant glut for convenience and our unfettered exploitation of natural resources, expelling our noxious waste into the atmosphere, tearing asunder the fragile layer of protective ozone, causing the seas to simmer, the polar ices to melt, the shores to diminish and storms to swell in angry protest. We who survive must never forget the role we play in this drama and vow to do better; to tiptoe through life leaving nary a footprint. It’s the least we can do for our mother, nature, who blesses us with so much. It is the least we can do. But, for now, we wait for the storm to pass.

Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 16 September 2018

perfection can’t be perfected
the wind passes through
life in its magnificence
wanting, wanting more,
for only the now truly matters
morsel by sugar-sweet morsel
but I don’t want to keep you
bellowing counter-clockwise
unfulfilled, denouement,
with no rebuttal, no debate
provoking fear, unlucky
blue sky lull, sleepy denial
if you say so dear
…shallow roots clinging

~kat

A ReVerse poem is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the ReVerse features the words of one writer, providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week.