Cape May Birding May 22-24

May 22 album
May 23 album
May 24 album

Presby to Van Vleck May 21, 2018

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wind storm

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.

Goffle Brook May 18, 2018

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