Witness to Ike on Galveston Island

The rain in a hurricane
Is not rain, but an ancient glacier
From a bygone ice age crumbling,
Shattered into a billion pieces,
Melted by this raw energy
That is locked in every drop
And hurled with the roar of thunder.


Rain in a hurricane does not fall
Nor does it slant;
It cuts like shards of glass,
Tastes of salt,
So gritty with debris
It leaves me bleeding.


The storm surge of a hurricane
Is not a wave,
But a wall of water
That trumpeting winds call down.
It is a flood
Shaped like a circling maelstrom sea
Boiling over the brim.


The wind in a hurricane
Is not a wind
But the rage of Titans,
The scream that drives sailors insane.


The eye of a hurricane
Is not the Eye of God,
For it would be weeping,
No, this eye is blinded
By the fury of void and chaos -
Tohu v'vohu * - the forces of creation
God wrestled into shape.


But remember when the tempest passes
And you return to your shredded home alive,
God rested on the 7th day and made it holy.

Tohu v'vohu is Hebrew for " unformed and void" in Gen.I:2,


Written May 2009, published online at PoemHunter May 2009, on poetfreak, published in Bayou Review Spring 2010