The darkest dark cloud advancing low and fast
Swept in winds screaming like a full on hurricane
Peaking seconds later when the lights went out
Transporting us back to a time without electricity.
Giant oak trees thick and tall more than a century old
Crashed down across the street mangling the wires
Crushed down on a neighbor’s roof evicting them
Uprooting routines dependent on plugged in machines.
After an overcast evening twilight candles dinner
Made possible cooking with a gas stove
I take one last hot shower using the stored water in the
tank
Thankful that plumbing works on gravity.
Soon generator motor noise intrudes thrumming rhythmically
Providing emergency refrigeration and essential lighting
For neighbors next to us and across the way hunkering down
But we just wait quietly reading with flashlights.
Morning begins with figuring out how to make coffee
Then a walk around the neighborhood to inspect
Workers with chainsaws dismembering downed trees
Finding just our two blocks without power.
Wondering when will the utility workers get around to us
Wondering what it was like when there was no electric grid
Wondering was it just yesterday that we were visiting the
garden
For 24 hours not taking our modern life for granted.
We still call them telephone poles that transport sounds
What once were telegraph poles sending alphabet signals
Now those debarked tree trunk columns hold our lifeline
The thread that brings the current of electrons to us.
Though cell towers can transmit the internet packets of data
Those towers and our smart phones require dumb electricity
And most everything else that heats and cools and does work
for us
Reminding us how much manual work was required each day
Before the invention of electric appliances and devices
Before every street and road was strung with wires
Before the Anthropocene era put its imprint on the earth
When the pastoral scene meant hard labor.
