Smoke Signals in a Hurricane

Boulder CO, Dec 30, 2021

Smoke Signals in a Hurricane

I chose, with admirable timing, to communicate via smoke

during a category-five misunderstanding.

Struck the match of intention,

cupped it like a fragile idea,

and whispered, “This will be clear.”

The wind laughed in italics.

My first signal rose bravely, a tidy spiral of nuance,

only to be body-slammed by a gust named “Assumption.”

Somewhere, a palm tree translated me as “Probably Fine.”

I tried again;

thicker plume, more context, a bonfire of clarifications.

The hurricane applauded by relocating my message to Nebraska.

Visibility: zero.

Subtlety: airborne debris.

I stood there, holding damp kindling and dignity,

insisting this was strategic opacity.

It wasn’t.

There are moments for semaphore,

for carrier pigeons, for speaking plainly into the storm

with your feet braced and your verbs unornamented.

Instead, I choreographed ash.

So here’s the lesson, written in slightly singed eyebrows:

When the weather is wild, don’t whisper in vapor.

Build a shelter.

Open the door.

Say the thing before it blows away.

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This ekphrastic poem is built around its title, the 17th line of a previous poem built entirely of sentence fragments that became titles.

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Christopher Reilley Poems