Aren’t echoes supposed to fade?
The echo of the storm is building as the anniversary approaches.
Should we do anything to commemorate?
What would that look like?
There’s not a day that passes without that I think about that storm.
Don’t turn it off but don’t let it stop you either
Stop me? Stop from what exactly?

The Weather Service named the storm “Irma”
I usually call it “The Storm”…  that’s enough
I would say that you’d have to have been there to ‘know’
But that’s not relevant.
I was ‘there’ and I sure don’t ‘know’ much

At least not in my head
I can give out facts and figures but anyone can do that
I only know about it in the same unconscious way I know about my heartbeat, or  the fact that I am breathing while writing these words.
The storm is in me now, just in there, woven into who I am.

But you wouldn’t know it to look at me.
There is no badge of attainment or medal for participating.
I often look at my boat and picture it being battered and as I envision that violence I begin to ascribe human characteristics to inhuman things.

I don’t want to do that- but it happens