Weather Report

Sept 21 2013

We even disagreed
about the weather.

While complete strangers
find it easy breaking the ice
when a day

is unexpectedly nice.
Making small talk
over shared misery
bad predictions.

But she worshipped sun
and I am consoled by rain.
Omens
darkened her clouds,
she took stormy skies to heart.
While I see Greek tragedies, and pagan gods,
enthralled
by the pageantry
the sturm und drang.

Which is why
when she disappeared one night
I figured California,
where it's always gorgeous
and weather reports
aren't much.
Because when beautiful days
are ho-hum
what's to say?

But how do strangers meet
in paradise?
And how do the brooders, the glumly saturnine
survive
the high pressure
of perfect weather?
When there's no excuse
for bad humour,
and pathetic fallacy
is as shallow
as a happy face.

She sent a postcard
of Pacific sunset,
no return address.
Some darkroom magic, I suspect
in the sparkling blue
the pinks and reds.
Her perfect fantasy,
but less epiphany
than farce.

Which was after midnight, here,
with a waxing moon
breaking fitfully through
roiling ragged cloud,
wind-driven
spiked with rain.
A vast drama
playing out in the upper atmosphere
over-powering sleep.

How ecstatic I felt
to be so small.
To disappear
one night
as well.

I was reading a short essay in which the author confessed she had always disparaged talk about the weather as pointless and banal, but then came to realize that it was the perfect way in, between strangers: non-threatening, and universal. Of course here, the weather is always interesting; sometimes vital. Weather reporters can be celebrities.

I had to admit that I often resort to short weather reports speaking long distance with my elderly mother. She reciprocates, and seems cheered by a nice day -- even though she can easily go through daily life without ever actually stepping out into it, moving from her condo to the underground garage and then by car. Weather has a powerful effect on our moods, even if we're just observing through glass.

But who's to say what's good and bad? Sometimes, a stormy day is exhilarating. And sometimes, we all need the enforced time out of a snow day. "Good" weather isn't always good!

And how different this all must be in places like Hawaii, or Southern California, where the weather is as predictable as sunrise: sunny and dry and temperate. Who listens to the carbon copy weather report? And aren't all those good days wasted; hard to appreciate when they're taken for granted?

Anyway, all these thoughts morphed into this poem. It's not autobiography; although I do love a good storm, and often find overcast days unaccountably restful. Although if not autobiography, perhaps an exercise in unbecoming self-flattery, since the sun-lover comes across as shallow; while it's implied that those attracted to "interesting" weather are more thoughtful, sensitive, and deep. ...Or at least more susceptible to angst!

My favourite part of the poem is the call-back in the very last sentence: " ...disappear(ed)/ one night ...". (I also quite like "ho-hum"!) I think this does get a lot closer to autobiography, in that I'm very good at living in my head: while the hypothetical "she" may have needed thousand of miles to disappear, I can quite happily disappear in thought and quiet observation. No going anywhere. Here, of course, it’s disappearing into insignificance against the majesty of nature.