Belated Warnings

[mothwing]

It is pissing down outside.
Nontheless, I took my umbrella and hurled myself at the weather, fought my way towards the bus station and went to the uni, walked the ten minute walk which felt like eternity and took me at least twenty-five minutes today, got to the uni dripping wet, water seeping through my shoes, nearly blind because of the drops on my glasses, water running down my spine, the works -

ONLY TO FIND A LITTLE NOTE PINNED TO THE DOOR SAYING THAT THE SEMINAR'S BEEN CANCELLED!!!

I couldn't believe it.
Well, there was nothing to be done but turn around and go home, which is what I did.

And what do I see when I get home and have a look at my inbox? There is a mail, apparently sent at 16:50, saying that the seminar has been cancelled. Only that I checked my E-mails directly before I left at 17:10, and there was nothing there.
Sometimes, I hate my e-mail provider a little. 

 Storm Warnings 

The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky

And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.

Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.

-Adrienne Rich