Back-to-School Weather

The night of Irene, under the threat of tornadoes and ninety mile an hour winds, the kids and I slept in the basement.   We awoke in the dark.  We climbed up the basement stairs and guessed at how long the power had been out and made coffee with boiling water poured over a sieve of coffee grinds. 

In the evening, my husband and I went out to assess neighborhood damage and to bring home ice cream in celebration of power restored.  Irene had hurled walnuts and sweet gum pods to the street.  There were branches and leaves: ginkgo and maple and oak.  Beneath the footbridge, the water, smelling faintly of the ocean, gurgled past.  Someone had moved the feral cats’ food bowl from the woods to higher, dryer ground.   

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