How I feel about the Storm

I thought that this poem fit nicely with both feminism and the environment, since it’s a pretty accurate representation of Sandy, and written by Adrienne Rich.

Storm Warnings

The glass has been falling all the afternoon,


And knowing better than the instrument 


What winds are walking overhead, what zone 


Of grey unrest is moving across the land,


I leave the book upon a pillowed chair


And walk from window to closed window, watching 


Boughs strain against the sky

_________________

And think again, as often when the air


Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,


How with a single purpose time has traveled 


By secret currents of the undiscerned


Into this polar realm. Weather abroad


And weather in the heart alike come on 


Regardless of prediction.

_______________

Between foreseeing and averting change


Lies all the mastery of elements 


Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter. 


Time in the hand is not control of time,


Nor shattered fragments of an instrument


A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,


We can only close the shutters.

________________

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black 


And set a match to candles sheathed in glass


Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine


Of weather through the unsealed aperture.


This is our sole defense against the season; 


These are the things we have learned to do


Who live in troubled regions.