In the Wake of Hurricane Idalia
The ripples of tap water are now still, contained.
Rubber ducks float languidly beneath
the ritual of sweet summer,
a privilege I’d never thought to praise, while
miles down the Eastern seaboard
in Tampa Bay, a bitter surge spreads
high with might, its levels rising,
tearing homes and palms apart.
Its calming eye stares from within
a cyclone circling calamity around,
threatening those with ancient eyes that gleam,
the paragons of sacrifice in worrisome weather.
Grandma, Mamani, in reckless waves
watches laborious dimes drop down the drain,
floorboards wrecked,
streets flooded wet,
spirals of wind and moistened air.
Transferred heat from sea to land
stirs up storms for hours on end.
Canoes of rescue teams arrive, and
Mamani inches step by step, fleeing north
to a patch of homely grass
beside the paddle pool where I relax.
Bache, come here!
I hear Mamani gently demand.
She strokes my unblemished hands,
“I’ll stay a while,” and lightly sighs.
Until a while becomes forever, her
home now a shelter borrowed & unknown.
Familial love fills half the cracks
of a heart sunken within ruins and stones.
Bibliography:
ABC News. "How Climate Change Makes Hurricanes More Destructive."
YouTube, uploaded by ABC News, 27 Sep. 2023,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmf9RSaAcTw. Accessed 15 May 2024.
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. "Hurricanes and Climate Change." C2ES, www.c2es.org/content/hurricanes-and-climate-change/. Accessed 23 May 2024.
Environmental Defense Fund. "How Climate Change Makes Hurricanes More Destructive." EDF, www.edf.org/climate/how-climate-change-makes-hurricanes-more-destructive. Accessed 15 May 2024.
Environmental Defense Fund. "Why Are Floods Hitting More Places and People?" EDF.org, Environmental Defense Fund, https://www.edf.org/why-are-floods-hitting-more-places-and-people. Accessed 7 June 2024.
"Map: Idalia Flooding in Big Bend Surge." Tampa Bay Times, 2 Sep. 2023, www.tampabay.com/hurricane/2023/09/02/map-idalia-flooding-big-bend-surge/. Accessed 1 June 2024.
NASA. "A Force of Nature: Hurricanes in a Changing Climate." NASA Science, www.science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/a-force-of-nature-hurricanes-in-a-changing-climate/. Accessed 30 May 2024.
NPR. "What’s the Connection between Climate Change and Hurricanes?" NPR, 30 Aug. 2023, www.npr.org/2023/08/30/1196865225/whats-the-connection-between-climate-change-and-hurricanes. Accessed 30 May June 2024.
National Weather Service. "Hurricane Idalia 2023."
National Weather Service,
www.weather.gov/tae/HurricaneIdalia2023. Accessed 4 June 2024.
