.
atmospheric upheaval
elements
wild enough to send Lear
back to his bolt-cloven tree
and mean enough
to close Highway 1 for a year

deluge —
pluvial downpour
wet enough to give
a latter-day Noah ideas
about launching a second Ark

and even though
25 years have passed
since the storm of ‘83
this time around
young has been replaced with old
shivering
the wife and I try to survive
with a broken generator
already into the fifth day
of wet, dark and cold
and still no sign of PG&E trucks
coming to the rescue
my transistor radio
informing us that this storm
as far as the loss of power
is the most sever storm
that has ever come ashore
on the Central California coast

oh, I suppose
in strictly scientific terms
both of these weather disruptions
will be regarded only
as interesting moments
in meteorological history

but happening
twice in my yard
in my lifetime —
they are complete disasters!
the kind of events
grandfathers love
to exaggerate about
+++
.

.........AFTERWORD — Two storms twenty five years apart. I was fifty three in 1983 and rather enjoyed the the weather challenge. This time around I'm 78 and my how things have changed. Five days with out electricity was no fun at all. I also realized that with my connection to the internet disrupted I felt cut off from the rest of the world. Didn't even have a computer back in '83. For me these two storms underline the aging process.

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