A rain shower, the wind in the pines, these former joys now bring a bolt of fear. The hurricane has worked its way into my veins. Shock bleaches the path ahead. We leave the house behind. Not wishing to impose on friends or relatives, we move from town to town. My employer calls it furlough, leave without pay. The return? Well, now, that’s hard to say. In a matter of hours, I find I am lost or free from constraint— I can’t decide on point of view. The horizon has changed: beyond the sinkholes, the downed trees, the mudslides, an opening, a widening sky.
Janine Lehane is a poet and artist who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. Her works appear in Under the Basho, Drifting Sands Haibun, Modern Haiku, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Telling Our Stories Press, The Labletter Monthly Notes Series, Hawaii Pacific Review, and elsewhere.
