| InterBoard Poetry Competition | |
HOW TO PREDICT THE WEATHER
Christine Klocek-Lim
(Poets.org)
It's not the water that hammers the roof,
or the thunder that strikes sky
like a great stomping boot caked with mud and other debris
that tells me rain is here.
When I wake in the morning I already know a front is moving in,
passing thru, swelling down atop us like arthritis on an old knee:
cool air over warm, pressure dropping and popping the joints right out of whack.
But we all creak eventually and I can't complain if my bones started
sooner than most
because I like the idea of clairvoyance.
Weather answers to my pronouncements.
And it's not the green clouds above
or ringed hazy moon of last night that tells me
hail is coming today.
No.
You've gotta get old enough to feel it.
It's good storytelling.
It's about that old twister that blew through thirty years ago,
lifted the house right off the ground and set it down all crooked in the orchard,
the dog still in the upstairs bedroom barking and barking out the window
with grammom's pink lace curtains caught on his ear.
The kids like to hear about this.
They don't mind me creaking about the place muttering about hail on the pansies,
predicting loose winds and wicked drops of mercury and watching the sky.
They don't think I'm crazy.
They still like sitting out the porch counting the spaces between flashes.
Every second counts.
Only the very young and old can do it right.
Judge Sheila Bender's comment: “The consistency of the landscape as built through the details and metaphors makes for a wonderful journey in this poem. And the comment at poem's end concerning what I think of as the bookends of life is a wonderful destination.”
About the InterBoard Poetry Competition
Archive of IBPC Winners
Honorable Mentions, May 2002
