Predicting The Weather
a Golden Shovel after Wendell Berry’s
“The Peace of Wild Things”
When we meet we talk about, inevitably, the weather. I
am obsessed with my app, checking what’s to come
as if meteorologists, with infinite wisdom, can see into
the future with their clever models that consider all the
sophisticated feedback loops and detect the presence
of El Nino, La Nina and the other major cycles of
planet-wide events and recurrences. Always, there’s still
an element of chance, of random fluctuations. Water
remains a constant concern – too much, too little and
always in the wrong place, flooding, receding – until I
feel that I am at one with the oceans, seas, rivers, feel
I, too, am waxing and waning under the moon high above,
as its pale light shines down when the clouds allow me
to see its silvery glow. Too much water vapour in the
atmosphere will turn it to fog, making us all day-blind
to the changes around us. And others gaze on the stars
hoping to escape a home that’s being trashed, waiting
for the next planet, the next big thing to appear with
hope for a new start, ignoring all the chances for their
current home’s resuscitation. I want then to see the light.
Emily Tee, originally from Northern Ireland, is a poet currently living in England. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of online and print journals, magazines and zines in the UK, US and Canada among other places, as well as several print anthologies. She is the ekphrastic challenge judge and editor for The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press. When not writing she’s usually wandering somewhere in a pair of muddy walking boots.
