Although I have posted to date 365 poems, some other poems I have yet to post and some poems I don't consider worthy of posting. That said, I have now passed the 500 mark. This poem represents numerically my 501st poem. May they continue to overflow, so long as the Muse continue to visit.

Living by the Weather
By John Herlihy

There was a time in the long ago worthy of mention,
When we always measured everything by the weather.
Our feelings and moods took on an added dimension;
Our premonitions and desires lingered in the sun on heather.
There were no forecasts in their pretentious potentiality,
Only the presence of weather in its grim, unpredictable reality.
When primitives awoke to the day whether fair or foul,
They adjusted their habits as they went about on the prowl.

The wind stirred their blood into an exaggerated frenzy,
Heightening other emotions such as desire, love or envy.
The rain cautioned an awareness of blessing and pain,
Depending upon the frequency in the appearance of rain.
In the desert as rarity, the rain is welcomed as fair weather;
Everyone rushes out of doors to experience the rain together.
In other cultures, the monsoon rains inspire people to retire,
From the deluge of endless rain with little capacity to inspire.

Imagine being confronted daily with a unique climate condition,
That people came to terms with no matter what their ambition.
Eskimos in the arctic wrapped themselves in animal furs,
Especially in the frigid 24-hour night when the midnight sun occurs.
Forest people had to beware of burs harboring hooks and teeth,
In fair weather, they gathered food from the surrounding heath.
Then arrived the interminable passage of inclement, cloudy days,
That sank moodily into the heart in a thousand inexpressible ways.

Nowadays a rainy day sends us to our closets for our mackintoshes;
Particularly wet weather will force us to happily don our galoshes.
Beware of opening a cheap, flimsy umbrella on a particularly billowy day;
It will collapse into a spear that will do nothing to keep the rain at bay.
Hurricanes are known for forces that suddenly swirl up out of nowhere,
With the capacity for destruction to reek havoc someplace, somewhere.
Let us not forget to mention the incredible precision of swirling tornados;
The accuracy of their stylus forges paths of terror that everyone knows.

In the end, our moody spirits take their cue from the weather;
A clear day portends the feeling of being as light as a feather.
Cloudy days bring their own phantoms to draw veils over the heart;
Rainy days can induce feelings of despair with power to tear us apart.
No doubt, the Divine Being set up challenges for primitive man,
To deal effectively with the world in the course of his life span.
Today, the weather of all kinds is projected on permanent display,
Whether it arrives in predicted attire is the purview of the day to say.