June-like...

... Weather-wise, anyway. Not what we need right now. But who can really complain?

June 

Alex Dimitrov

There will never be more of summer 

than there is now. Walking alone 

through Union Square I am carrying flowers 

and the first rosé to a party where I’m expected. 

It’s Sunday and the trains run on time 

but today death feels so far, it’s impossible 

to go underground. I would like to say 

something to everyone I see (an entire 

city) but I’m unsure what it is yet. 

Each time I leave my apartment 

there’s at least one person crying, 

reading, or shouting after a stranger 

anywhere along my commute. 

It’s possible to be happy alone, 

I say out loud and to no one 

so it’s obvious, and now here 

in the middle of this poem. 

Rarely have I felt more charmed 

than on Ninth Street, watching a woman 

stop in the middle of the sidewalk 

to pull up her hair like it’s 

an emergency—and it is. 

People do know they’re alive. 

They hardly know what to do with themselves. 

I almost want to invite her with me 

but I’ve passed and yes it’d be crazy 

like trying to be a poet, trying to be anyone here. 

How do you continue to love New York, 

my friend who left for California asks me. 

It’s awful in the summer and winter, 

and spring and fall last maybe two weeks. 

This is true. It’s all true, of course, 

like my preference for difficult men 

which I had until recently 

because at last, for one summer 

the only difficulty I’m willing to imagine 

is walking through this first humid day 

with my hands full, not at all peaceful 

but entirely possible and real.

Buy the book: Love and Other Poems

Rain and rhyme

We sure needed the stuff...

The Cycle
Theodore Roethke (1941)

Dark water, underground,
Beneath the rock and clay,
Beneath the roots of trees,
Moved into common day,
Rose from a mossy mound
In mist that sun could seize.

The fine rain coiled in a cloud
Turned by revolving air
Far from that colder source
Where elements cohere
Dense in the central stone.
The air grew loose and loud.

Then, with diminished force,
The full rain fell straight down,
Tunneled with lapsing sound
Under even the rock-shut ground,
Under a river’s source,
Under primeval stone.

A few days in the lightning capital of the USA*...

     * Central Florida (see map below)
... and an exasperating day of lightning-related travel delays getting home from there got me to revisiting a question that came up recently while hiking in a Yosemite thunderstorm: How many people are killed by lightning? Well, not many: In recent years, an average of about 33 Americans per year. And what are people doing when they are killed by lightning? Our man at the National Weather Service, John Jensenius, has the goods. From the Executive Summary:

From 2006 through 2013, 261 people were struck and killed by lightning in the United States. Almost two thirds of the deaths occurred to people who had been enjoying outdoor leisure activities. The common belief that golfers are responsible for the greatest number of lightning deaths was shown to be a myth. During this 8-year period fishermen accounted for more than three times as many fatalities as golfers, while camping and boating each accounted for almost twice as many deaths as golf. From 2006 to 2013, there were a total of 30 fishing deaths, 16 camping deaths, and 14 boating deaths, and 13 beach deaths. Of the sports activities, soccer saw the greatest number of deaths with 12, as compared to golf with 8. Around the home, yard work (including mowing the lawn) accounted for 12 fatalities. For work-related activities, ranching/farming topped the list with 14 deaths.

... Work-related activities contributed to 15% of the total lightning fatalities.... Farming/ranching-related activities contributed most (37%) to the work-related deaths. Other activities included construction (11%), lawn care (8%), roofing (8%), military work (5%), barge work (5%), and other (24%).

At the Orlando Airport, American Airlines workers stop loading bags if there has been a lightning strike within 5 miles during the previous 20 minutes. As I discovered, this can lead to pretty long delays taking off on a typical summer afternoon in Lightning Alley. Looking out the plane window as we sat on the tarmac, we could see the Jet Blue planes being loaded and taxiing toward takeoff. We were told over the intercom that "some other airlines" may not care as much about worker safety.

Tornadoes and big gummint

I suppose the feds could stop issuing weather warnings in states whose public officials have declared that they do not believe in science, but this would hardly be fair to the minority (?) of residents who do, unless one could selectively issue the warnings just to the rational people. The fact that you can't is an example of what we economists call non-excludability, a defining property of public goods. Which are, you know, one of those reasons we want to have gummint...

Still raining

Sunny and 78 degrees in February

I do feel sorry for you folks in the rest of the country. Really I do.