Channeling the Goddess of Weather

It began raining Sunday afternoon around 5:30, just when we wanted to start barbequing the steaks. So I waited. Thirty minutes later, I watched the Weather Channel and studied the radar. We were in the middle of that green blob with yellow-red eyes, so we probably had another half-hour of rain remaining from that particular monster. But there was another great blob moving towards us. There looked to be about a half-hour of a dry-spell coming our way. My window of opportunity! I waited. A half-hour later, I went out to the Weber and began preparing the coals. It was only spitting. Five minutes later, the clouds were breaking up and it had stopped raining altogether. Ten minutes later, I spread the coals and started cooking the steaks. Six minutes one side. Seven minutes the other. Still no rain. I took the steaks off the grille, closed the Weber up, and went inside, just as the rain began falling again. Imagine how many millions of dollars in satellite and television technology I just had used to grille those steaks. What a world!

Sonnet August Fifteen

Turning to the goddess Weather Channel
he beseeched her cathode presence and appealed
for illumination—meteorological data—
from her Doppler eyes, her satellite touch,
—that transubstantiated flesh and word—
to free his barbeque from this quickening
effect of angry, volatile, unruly,
colorless and apathetic rain.
And O she showed him multi-colored maps!
And O she spoke her grounded prophecy
through anchor oracles—Connecticut
School of Broadcasting trained and educated.
And so he saw the wisdom of her clouds
and O the sirloin steaks verily were good.

~Son Rivers 2005