Helene

 

September 26, 2024

Dark before morning. Rain fell steadily all night, though right now seems to be a lull in which I can hear the night insects chirring in the garden. This deluge is driven before the hurricane, which was two hundred miles from landfall in Florida when it began. The real show comes tonight, the same downpour joined by sixty mile an hour winds. Or maybe it will pass us by. 

Docenting yesterday, large lacunae in the visitation, during which I took out the recorder that’s been languishing in my satchel for a decade, played old hymns that sounded pure, like a boy singing, in that reverberant space. My fingers remembered how to hit the holes. 

As I sit at the desk, the rain increases several-fold, sounding more like mighty wind. How does the air hold so much water? Why does it want to? 

8:30 PM. Wind and downpour increasing. Helene, now a category 4, has not yet made landfall 400 miles away. Reports say it will be a category 2 in the suburbs of Atlanta.