HURRICANE IAN: GIFTS IN THE MISERY OF AFTERMATH

by Claire Matturro

Ashley Garner had given up on ever seeing her wedding ring again. She lost it outside her Fort Myers home just days before Hurricane Ian crashed into the coast of southwest Florida last Wednesday… The family stayed at their home during the storm and went outside to clean up as soon as it had passed. “We’re about 10 minutes into cleaning, and my husband is cleaning up the brush and the trees right next to the garage door,” Garner said. “There’s a pile of brush and trees, and he moves over one pile, and the ring was right there.” —AP, October 8, 2022

Garbage swirls around broken people and

lost, bewildered pets while cadaver dogs

prowl mounds of wood and concrete bent to

waste by hurling winds and storm surge. Newly

homeless people crowded into shelters, 

feeling the roughness of unfamiliar pallets 

hard against their skin, are warned that they

must leave though they have nowhere to go.

 

Across the globe, Russians continue

killing Ukrainians, but here

in Florida our focus narrows—

How do we find our missing

mother? Where can we get fresh water?

Find food which tastes fresh

on our sore tongues? Shower off this itch and

stink? Is it safe to flush a toilet?

 

Inland, farmers search for lost horses in

swamped pastures and count dead cows flung

into ditches by river currents broken

free of levees in two feet of rain.

Someone’s pink umbrella floats by

in flood waters spun off a Gulf beach once

seemingly benign and filled with summer kids

splashing in waves not yet turned violent.

 

In all this cursed misery of aftermath

still strange gifts are bestowed—the neighbor

who never spoke to us arriving with chainsaw

to clear the cracked tree sloping over our porch;

hummingbirds unharmed returning to feed;

the perfect stranger who hands clean water,

tangerines, and $50 to an elderly man

crying inside his car that won’t start.

 

Then this, a woman finds her lost

wedding ring she feared was as

gone as the Gulf coast island homes.

She places the ring, retrieved from a pile of

brush and tree limbs, on her finger

soiled by the grime of recovery. She rests,

sitting on the curb, and prays to God, giving

thanks for what she sees as a sign of hope.

Claire Matturro is a former lawyer and college teacher, and author of eight novels, including four published by HarperCollins. Her poetry has been published in Kissing Dynamite, The New Verse News, One Art, Muddy River Poetry Review, Topical Poetry, Tiger Moth Review, Lascaux Review, and is forthcoming in Slant. 

MY HEART GOES OUT

by Joan Mazza

The morning after the storm. Photo tweeted by @miguelmarquez.

to those many people who lost

their homes, flattened and inundated

by Hurricane Ian’s smack down.

To people sifting through mud

and debris to salvage what’s useful,

from homes without roofs.

The videos and photos are published

of houses floating away, smashed.

Pets gone. My heart goes out

to the people of Pakistan weeks

after one third of their country

was flooded and now their children

are dying of cholera. Swathes

of forests have burned all over

the world. Whales are eating

plastic because the ocean is full

of it. Covid isn’t over. People

are dying every day, gasping

for breath. My heart goes out

to those too cold or too hot, breathing

mold or dust or smoke and ash.

For my friends Shaun and Karen

in a marathon to outrun cancer.

For Charlotte who said goodbye to her

beloved hound Maggie after sixteen

years. For everyone suffering

as humans always have in a world

that throws us beauty and abundance,

love, pleasure, and plush comforts,

leaves us anticipating, eager for more,

and then snatches it all away.

My heart goes out to you, to us. 

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops  on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her poetry has appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Comstock Review, Poet Lore, Slant, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia and writes every day.