In Storm-Watch Season

The foaming clematis
Has finished blooming
The autumn
Equinox is here
The air is very still
But day and night
Storms in the Caribbean
Keep the Atlantic roaring

The ocean
Is pouring fog
Into the trees
And with it the fresh smells
Of eel grass and of kelp
Float inland from the torn
And churning beaches

In the storm haunted evening
A cricket
Has begun to sing
A street lamp shines
Deep in the fog
A burr
Of golden light

In three months’ time
We will have snow
In three months’ time
The savior will be born.


--Anne Porter (1911-2011), poet and devout Roman Catholic, from Living Things: Collected Poems