(Ed note: Earlier this month, our friends over at Ideasmyth ran a series post by poet John Foy. His theme was “braving storms” and the posts so good we’re going to share them with you this week. –sdh)
In late August 2011, the very outer edges of Hurricane Irene were felt in Cape Cod as the storm, by then an extratropical cyclone, moved inland toward Vermont and New Hampshire. At the time, I was in Brewster, on the Cape, with my wife (the painter Majo L. Foy). We were staying with our friend, the poet and translator Lorna Knowles Blake (pictured here), her husband Bob Batterman, and their two beloved Portuguese Water Dogs. The name of their beachfront home is Point of View, from which today’s poem takes its title.
“Point of View” (I wrote this one) is a celebratory poem about the hurricane. During the storm, I happened to be in just about the safest place: the vast mudflats of Brewster at low tide. Out there on the reaches of sand, there was nothing to blow away or crash down. So I was in the rare position of being able to revel in the wall of wind.