Based on an interview with Met Éireann
meteorologist Linda Hughes
Girls aren’t supposed to play with storms but I am
wound around them, their intricacies, soft breezes and
brutalities. Why wouldn’t this be a place for a girl?
Surely we belong in the eye of things, in the precision
point of potential destruction, haven’t we always been
seer, soothsayer, truthteller, Cassandra? Eyes always on
things that shift, that flow, that rise and fall, the
patterns of the world. Mouthpiece for foretelling,
numbers and statistics flowing from fingertips, all
lipstick and research. I hope they see me, messy
pigtails, diamond-eyed, lightning-brained, I hope they
point at the screen and ready themselves, curiosity
ignited, prepared to step into a world of wind and
blaze, salted equations, dark water and sky.
Today’s poem is from Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan’s debut collection, The Salt of Something New (Dedalus Press)
meteorologist Linda Hughes
Girls aren’t supposed to play with storms but I am
wound around them, their intricacies, soft breezes and
brutalities. Why wouldn’t this be a place for a girl?
Surely we belong in the eye of things, in the precision
point of potential destruction, haven’t we always been
seer, soothsayer, truthteller, Cassandra? Eyes always on
things that shift, that flow, that rise and fall, the
patterns of the world. Mouthpiece for foretelling,
numbers and statistics flowing from fingertips, all
lipstick and research. I hope they see me, messy
pigtails, diamond-eyed, lightning-brained, I hope they
point at the screen and ready themselves, curiosity
ignited, prepared to step into a world of wind and
blaze, salted equations, dark water and sky.
Today’s poem is from Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan’s debut collection, The Salt of Something New (Dedalus Press)
