Charleston Currents

By Marjory Wentworth, S.C. poet laureate

Boats fly out of the Atlantic
and moor themselves in my backyard
where tiny flowers, forgotten
by the wind, toss their astral heads
from side to side. Mouths ablaze, open,
and filling with rain.

After the hurricane, you can see
the snapped open drawbridge slide
beneath the waves on the evening news.
You go cold imagining
such enormous fingers of wind
that split a steel hinge until
its jaw opens toward heaven.

SC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Hurricanes

S.C. Encyclopedia | The term “hurricane” comes from the West Indian word “huracan,” which means “big wind” and is used to describe severe tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and the eastern Pacific Ocean. In the western Pacific, hurricanes are known as typhoons. The development of a hurricane requires an area of low pressure in a region of favorable atmospheric and oceanic conditions. Ocean temperatures must be near or greater than 80 ̊ F and wind speeds at mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere must be light.