Hugo

It started calmly enough at first

gray rolling in from the East,

crowding out the long loved blue

the slow rising of seas beyond the highest tide,

steady winds,

mother nature gently combing

the tangles out of palm fronds.

The romance of her gentle gales

turned to the rapping of harsh hands

on doors and windows

boarded with plywood

the seas rose and stretched

churned with frantic haste

each wave a pioneer risen to the call of Manifest Destiny

ready to consume every ounce of land it could touch

bought for pennies on the dollar.

leaves and pine needles embedded into paint

on cars

and into siding

glass windows bowed inward

towards hands brave enough to have stayed.

the wind howled it's warning

of the ghosts He could make.

In the center

the calm of funeral processions.

There was even cake.

The intermission passed too quickly

and the fury resumed,

round 2 of the televised fight of the night,

laying down fields of trees,

as if the wind wanted to play a game of pick up sticks after battle.

He huffed and puffed and blew his terrible breath

and rained his terrible rain

and gnashed with his terrible tides.

But dawn broke,

We arose. emerged. bedraggled.

There was a morning after him

There is a morning after

after all of them.