“Ratings-driven sensationalism of weather coverage by the media gives the public a false impression of the severity of many weather events.” Earth Report 2000

“We understand the destruction, not what it being destroyed.” Prof. Ghillean Prance, in an intro to “The Rain Forests: A Celebration”

First there would be a half-ditch effort to store boxes high, tape cupboards shut, stash extra money in the butter shelf of the fridge, next to the 35mm film, ready to go, chilled like a magnum of zinfandel. First there would be the kneeling, hands clutched together, head tilted skyward, at the landing, with the so so white Berber, the swimming pool out back a bit too full, the pond awash with turtles plummeting, then surfacing, huddling close, tasting, seeing, hearing, feeling the danger.

Of course there would be too much news, the overcast, simulcast, broadcast, typecast, first caste, castles of information, frontal movement here, trees swaying there, the giving it all up, beating it senseless, pounding, pounding, that unrelenting storm.

Certainly there’d be a few prayers lofted out, but not from her. Even with her pious pose on the landing, she would not be much for divine intervention, which would not have put her any less, any more safe, any further away from the terror in her capillaries, and that terror served up without much caffeine, so much that it would keep her up, up, up, and later when she would finally drift off, would jilt her awake in the middle of dark dreams.

Yes, there could be an ample food supply, she might add to the pantry a few cans of almonds, some soy milk, a bit of chocolate who se presence she would divulge only to herself, unless.

And if there were children, she might whisk them away from school early; squeeze them to squirming, sing the same silly song thirteen times, rocking, rocking, rocking, to calm the news and the words and her world.

Surely she wouldn’t take the library books back today, sit in a coffee shop drinking spicy tea, caching words that tumbled through here digits and made furtive love below her. The wind blowing the palm leaves horizontal, the leaves stretching and desperate, trying to catch a glimpse of that hot, sweet magic, and the rain might fall, afterall, wouldn’t it, comely and luminous, as it is, as it does, the sky falling every day.

*Originally published in The New Orleans Review