Contributor: Bruce Levine

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Wind blowing the trees –
Waiting

Rain pelting the roofs –
Waiting

Warnings – fear – panic –
Waiting

False alarms and near death situations –
Waiting

Tree limbs, branches and twigs
Scatter the lawn now
Tearing asunder
A long standing dream

Follow the plan – follow the leader
Running to safety or so they believe
Storing up water – storing up food-stuffs
Counting the days they’ll all do without

Fixing the time, it can’t last forever
Praying they’ll all see the very next dawn
Watching the wind – moments of calmness
Gusts overtaking those moments of ease

Clouds overhead as dark as the night now
Following shadows cast off on their own
Ev’ryday fears amplified grandly
Leaving all thought and reason behind

Lightning and thunder – power lines bursting
Freezing the time in a moment of light
Tracing the tempest with photograph mem’ry
Timelines projecting the hurricane path

Watching the day creeping by slowly
Hours of watching and waiting to come
Watching a squirrel scamper up tree limbs
Looking for shelter from the eye of the storm


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Bruce Levine, a native Manhattanite, has spent his life as a writer of fiction and poetry and as a music and theatre professional. His literary catalogue includes four novels, short stories, humorous sketches, flash fiction, poetry, essays, articles and a screenplay His nearly one-hundred-fifty works are published in magazines, over twenty-five on-line journals, thirty books and his shows have been produced in New York and around the country. His work is dedicated to the loving memory of his late wife, Lydia Franklin. He lives in New York with his dog, Daisy. Visit him at www.brucelevine.com.