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Monday, September 17, 2018

LOVE IN HURRICANE SEASON

by Earl J. Wilcox


Parts of a neighborhood are flooded in Latta, S.C. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)


And I will watch the spindly pine
trees shrug and quiver when the thrust
of wild wind one hundred miles per hour
slash across our back orchard and beyond.

And I will speak softly, calmly to you, hold
my heart, your hand if necessary when
the thunder rolls, the bolts of blue skies slice
across our soggy zoysia grass, greening.

And I will never let you go again until
the next hurricane, whether this year
or a century from now, when you and
I and all that’s ours takes us safely home.


Earl Wilcox lives in South Carolina, where Hurricane Florence arrived with gusto and ballyhoo.