I want to understand the forces
unfurling in a hurricane, but must
be content in my sheer ignorance.
I come to my same favorite place
one day to write, and the power
is gone. Then I come with
huge new ideas and want to
write like--well, like the wind--
and the wind has come up,
hurricane-like, and my penmanship
turns to scribble-pictures on paper.

I hide behind my truck and
behind a silver trash barrel,
but this hurricane wraps around
with a power no one can avoid.
The important things I have
reserved for saying, how will
they get said? At least, they're
not surfacing in this
day's storm-upset thinking.

Six Chinese kids lift
their heads above the
bluff where I look at angry
water. They wave to me.
I nod, but my hands grasp
the flapping paper tablet.
I hear their song-like tongue,
a chorus mixed with groaning gusts.
There is too much wind
coming from the west, from
the direction of China, so far away.