Gone Winds Echo by Mark Kessinger

Irma has ground against Cuba all night;the Cuban mountains shearing off energyright out of the winds as high assix thousand foot peaks.The Sierra Maestra, Cristal, and othersform a serrated blade in the nosebleed seats.For us, we had places called Port Lavaca, Rock Port.Nicknames for Surfside, sea level.At an altitude similar to a good size boat.Harvey ran inland and up the Balcones Escarpment,a slow rise of a thousand feet or so.Coastal plains, prairie, low chaparral, until,like a railroad car on a runaway hill,it lost steam and slowly began to run back downtowards the coast.It’s catastrophe week in hurricane season.Right now, Fort Myers is in the eye of Irma.It has been cut down to a Cat 2.Winds at the airport 80 mph, gusts to 101.Hopefully, this cuts down the storm surgewhich can come in right underfoot in the sandstone groundand not just up the rivers and canals ofa boat crazy civilization.Like Houston, there does not seem to beany easy answers for Florida.Houses that float, perhaps, like in NOLA.Powered by fast recovering solar panels.But for the most part,if the future is full of answers,it’s holding its breath. Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash