Talk Talk

Bromeliad

It gets hot in South Florida.  How hot is it? Today's weather report says:

88°F
Mostly Cloudy
Wind: SE at 12 mph
Humidity: 51%

But I don't mind the heat -- and don't believe that cloudy bit--the sky is blue, the sun is beating, and this flower is growing in my side yard. Wait until you see it next week; it will be even more amazing!

Tropical Storm: Chris

My husband just emailed me. See, 75 degrees in the winter is nice, but this is today's weather report. My Keys house is at the red X . If the storm comes quickly we'll just get a lot of rain. If it stalls and grows...well, I don't want to think about it....I gotta go now and watch the weather channel.

Thanksgiving after Hurricane Wilma

Wrote this last week--posting now.

Around here they say the storm isn’t over until you get your lights (phone, roof, whatever) back. And, yes, for me the storm is finally over.  I got my phone lines back; that means internet. I missed it more than water. Well, okay, not more than water but damn near. So I spent all day with you--reading your blogs, your articles, poems, and emails. I admired your paintings and studied your comments. I thought about all of us in the context of the larger things—after reading Jimmy Carter's sorrowful piece on America, for instance—and the smaller things, too—a poet standing in his yard and looking at an apple tree.  Just want to say I missed my normal life. It’s great to be back.

Wilma

Weather Report Oh, hypnotic swirl circle of color slow-moving monster I look you in the eye and assess all that I am what I possess what I could lose. And if I should choose to stay what then ?

The weather: always changing, always remaining the same.

Three Old Poems

I'm thinking of all the space junk floating around--and some of it is mine. Look what I stumbled across in cyberspace--from years ago.

Florida Poems

Still there!

Florida Bay and the Glades

Last night I saw an Everglades fire--up close. Pat and I were driving home from the Keys. We'd heard the road had been closed, off and on, all day, but it was midnight and we decided to chance it. Traffic moved about 10 miles per hour along Card Sound Road. At least it moved. As we got closer to the mainland I smelled the smoke and looked up from my book to a shock. Imagine this picture* at night, a black night, the trunks glowing red and breathing, little clumps of fires reigniting on the ground near the bottoms of the trees, and all the ground smoking. It looked like the floor of Hell.

*This is not my picture, but it fits the landscape perfectly.

More about Frances

Okay. I have been hunkered down for 72 hours and I was getting cabin fever so I went out to Dunkin' Donuts (the only place I found open). The wind has really died down, the rain is off again-on again. We have had no damage to our house. Got a couple of pix. Hope the people in the northern part of the state fare as well as we did.

I can't BELIEVE how many trees are down for a storm that did not exceed 125MPH at land fall.

Saturday, the 4th

Rainy and blustery when I woke up, rainy and blustery still. Huge trees down--40 year old gumbo limbos, 50 foot ficus trees, seagrapes and coconut palms. The last key lime I know of. Forecast tomorrow? Rainy and blustery again.

Hurricane A Comin' (or not)

Fort Lauderdale --Thursday and Friday, the 2nd and 3rd

The media frenzy began on Wednesday. Hurricane T.V. news 24-7; lines of waiting cars at the gas pumps; sorry, no ice; empty shelves, empty stores; every Home Depot layin' in supplies ten truckloads at a time;
wind gusts; the odd tree down.

But frenzies do not last long. Two days is a long time to get ready for a storm. All who will board up have boarded up. All who will leave have left. The shops are closed. The town is dead. And Hurricane Frances is still in the Atlantic, maybe petering out. I think I'll get up and check.