The ocean riles up with the wind,
angry and insistent,
throwing wave upon wave against
walls and stairs,
stealing sand to hurl high and heavy
atop everything we built and all that we did not.
Roofs and thatch scatter, chaff
with the feathers of helpless birds.
Sudden stillness:
orange light and shuddering calm.
Trees sigh and mourn their roots.
The booming sea measures the quiet until
the roar of a hundred thousand freight trains
drowns the silence and
the wind rips the other way,
implacable and vehement.
We grasp and pray.

(top: article.wn.com; bottom: abc7chicago.com)