I spent spent most of yesterday reading my meteorology book about what drives the weather of the Pacific Northwest--the semi-permanent Aleutian Low, the Pacific High, the Kuroshiro Current, the North Pacific Drift, the California Current, the jet stream, the Coriolis Effect, the Ferrel Cell, the Polar Front, the Ekman Spiral, and La Nina.
Our local weather guru, Cliff Mass, wrote a blog asking his readers to have the patience of Job as we wait for summer weather. A friend said it would likely be snowing on her Mt. Rainier camping trip this weekend. Another friend bought spinach starts (about 3 inches high) at our farmers' market yesterday; foot-high tomato plants are just a dollar. Friends and family back east are sweltering in hundred-degree heat. One of them is wearing flip-flops and linen shorts to work.
And then I read a poem by Brendan Constantine, "Poem Ending On A Line By The Department Of Water And Power." It is a series of lines out of their contexts, the last line being, "If you disagree with water and electrical charges, please call."
This line bounced around in my head all day long as I tried to imagine the Pacific Ocean, the clouds, the hydrogen, the oxygen, the ions. It must have worked its way into my subconscious, the way poem do when you're not looking. I woke up around 3:38 this morning with the image of a local postal clerk asking me "fragile, liquid, perishable?"
I thought of the earth and the clouds and answered yes.