Storm Eye

Deciding Whether I Like the Radar

This is – fair advisory –
the province of the weather-addled
and it’s a day when the gray sky
stutters, “s s s snow,” and its pillows
swell in the pines. That should be
enough, even as the first stir
of east wind sheds a fine cloud
from the hemlock’s limber finger.

I should sit easily
in this long white instant, enjoy,
as they say, the day. But
I wonder. To the east
the sea that winter can’t calm
mumbles, exhales foggy, salty, warm
and might it, I wonder,
wet my day yet? I go

I go to the radar and
look down through its lashless eye,
look over the whole region
and see where the pure blue snow
borders with half-happy pink and where
dark green rain obliterates
even the islands. That seam, for instance,
splitting the midsection of Peaks Island
may be bad news: if

I check again in ten minutes
it may have wobbled east
drawn near. And then
I think this must be what it’s like
to be a minor god
or the seer of Thebes…or an academic…
all eye, no hands
in the day.