Bigger and Better

Bigger and Better
I still have my little blue and white casserole dish to trade for anything bigger and better. Trade me, trade me, please!

Yesterday we had a tsunami warning from an earthquake that happened in Japan. The warning was lifted but the weather was wild. I walked into the coffee shop and heard loud crashing behind me outside. The windows were falling to the pavement from the floors above. Sirens were blaring. I sat down to wait out the storm. Luckily I had my Norton Anthology of Poetry with me.

"Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade" -- Jonathan Swift

"How the poor sailors stand amazed and tremble,
While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet,
Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters.
Quick to devour them!" -- Isaac Watts

"Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home." -- Isaac Watts

"the sky saddens with the gathered storm." -- James Thomson

Heavy rain pelted the coffee shop windows. The giant Douglas Fir across the street bent almost in half.

"Wild, wild the storm, and the seas high running,
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
On beachy slush and sand spirts
of snow fierce slanting,
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing
(That in the distance! Is that a wreck? Is the red signal flaring?) . . ." -- from Patroling Barnegat by Walt Whitman