Have you ever wondered
what it would be like, living
in a place besieged by hurricanes?
Every day I turn on the weather channel,
watch the ominous palms blowing in the wind.
The visual is necessary to terrorize us.
It’s a diabolical reprieve
from the terrorists blowing up railroad stations,
from the bodies rotting on the streets of Iraq,D
from the thousands and thousands dead in Pakistan.
We are all still quaking.
I take my pulse after the weather channel,
twenty more beats to the stop watch.
It’s time for me to stop.
It’s time to shut off the T. V.
It’s time to leave this configuration of gloom,
retreat into my sanctuary and breathe,
use a mantra to slow my thinking. Only then can I imagine
sun glinting through silk blinds.
And I can stop---------
obsessing about hurricanes.

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