Hopeful Hurrican Season

I've been sitting in my office for the last half hour pouring over the hurricane maps, the spaghetti tracks, the rain potential totals. Meanwhile, sweat drips from my hair onto my shoulders, and I have to wipe my face with my shirt sleeve every now and then. I am feeling a little more optimistic, now that the news seems a little more ominous. Yes, glad that the news is bad. And getting worse.

What a horrible person I am, wishing for flooding in New Orleans, after everything they've already suffered. But while taking that beating of 12-20 inches, they can hold on to the big storm Lee long enough to have it spin towards me with the first real rain in over a month. Is that too much to wish for?



 Look at my field.





my back yard,

 

or my poor hydrangeas

 And I am sure my conditions are not nearly as bad as those south of me, or south and west.

Look at my beautiful plants.
These babies need to have
new homes......ones that would be cool and wet. How can I send them out to others' gardens without that cooling rain?




Am I just rationalizing when I say everyone thinks this way?

 Is there a way to resolve this guilty conflict of interests? Maybe there is not. But I cannot think about this without being reminded of this poem. Better than any other glimpse of this age old question is this, from my dear friend  

Elizabeth Seydel Morgan:

Watching the Weather Channel

Is it raining on you, Linda,

down in San Antonio-

raining too much?

Here in Virginia

the grass breaks

under our feet: the creek's

left some stones for the cows to lick.

The TV screen shows us cracks

in the earth where there used to be hay,

simulated systems massing 

and fading across the globe.

We say we pray for rain

but what do we know 

about asking for what we need?

We pray for the hurricane

to go around you- but send us its fringe,

the way we pray for the hand of Death

to pass on to another geography.