Storm Alex, Oct 8, 2020, Nice France, Image by Sky News

                          
 Septuagenarian out along the sea,  5am, Nice France

She hadn’t wanted to go out today.     

rain they said…

A tussle with stalactite mind,

bristling at a dare, 

No rain yet, she pulls on layers, resigned.

 

Starting out’s a doddle.

Breezes almost warm,

palm trees in sway recall

a Hawaiian moment 

restoring rare resolve.

The body is a kingdom, ancient but revered, connections purring,

wizened workings stirring,

Spider knees holding, folding.

King’s laborers working as one. 

The waves are drama now,

even for a sea,

the prologue Shakespearean,

tempest primed though barely birthed,

an hour, perhaps, before cloudburst.

There is frenzy. There is fanfare 

A drumroll dervish follows the wheels.               

Clattering flagpoles tap, tap, tingle.

Beach stall flags in tatters now

whip the air like sea snakes.

Most days in muted dark

she recites poetry aloud

No answer but the crack of a gull.

But all that's aside now

As the gale grows full.

In record time she’s up the hill 

on descent, a cobra’s clench.

A new wind joins the first.

The clutch/ hold thrill

of a child’s tag game.

Nothing for it but to go inland.

She pumps furiously to be off the street.

She gropes the last slope.

Meters away from the gate,

she feels the first drops.

If the storm passes, tomorrow she’ll go.  

Four days, she’s promised herself,

four in a row.

On Friday she’ll revel...marveling again at what it takes to tame one small habit.

This storm turned out to be the start of Storm Alex which devastated many villages and the only rail line going through villages from Breil sur Roya to Tende, France. Oct. 8, 2020.