The Weather Channel

A legacy of fascination with nature doing its worst

my dad would set the tv

to the weather channel for hours.

it played behind him on the small screen

next to the picture window overlooking the backyard

and the actual weather.

he bequeathed me his meteorological obsession

and attendant drama

powerful nor’easters, hundred-year hurricanes

warnings of tornadoes and white-out blizzard conditions

scrolling red beneath pixelated blue.

no one could tell us life was boring here in connecticut,

where if you don’t like the weather wait ten minutes.

today

watching hurricane ian barrel toward florida

(cat 4! jim cantore is jumping out of his skin)

my father hovers over my shoulder

restless, displacing motes.  

eye-wall, epicenter, there’s the lingo and an atmospheric shift,

we watch and wait,

not witness, but trigger itself;

how to explain?

my dad and me, we can wait like this forever.