© Eileen Ridge 1996

This is a piece about Hurricane Bertha, which came barreling up the East Coast in 1996. I was living alone in Nags Head, a bit north of where the storm made landfall (in the States) along the southern North Carolina coast. I’d just gotten my first laptop, and I marveled at being able to write on the computer, temporarily off the power grid. A week ago, Sandy devastated  much of the East Coast (and parts beyond), while largely sparing us, reminding me of this old poem, which I wrote as a string of haiku in a sort of stream-of-consciousness fashion. Shortly after I wrote it, it was my joy to perform it with Mick Vaughn playing bass in a duo we called “Cosmic Leaf.” Continue reading →