Tempest & Terroir

It’s time for a tumble into tempest and terroir. And so I return to storms and dirt. To dirt and storms. More specifically I revisit that sudden, destructive blast that crashed through the Adirondack Coast between Westport and Essex back on August 30, 2022. (See “Storm Damage” for the gory details.) And then I fast forward to our recent dirt work, sculpting and regrading a portion of the almost century old clay tennis court back closer to what it *might* have looked like two centuries ago. (See “The Art of Dirt Work” if you’re undaunted by dirt and clay and raw site work.)

Tempest & Terroir

A derecho, they said.
A straight line blast, they said.
A microburst, they said
in the hours after.
I'd watched at the front door
forehead hard against
sharp-edged muntins pressing
elliptical tattoos
into flesh above my brows.
Moments later, panting,
I stood in the screen porch
looking west toward the barns,
filming the angry minutes,
prolonged, distorted minutes,
while the sky blackened
and rain blurred horizontal
and leaves — at first, just leaves
and then clusters of leaves
and then whole branches —
streaked horizontally, 
southeast to northwest,
no gravity just a fierce force
ripping through our lake life
as crazed and decisive
and mesmorizing and efficient
as a runaway subway train.
Later, still spongy earth
gaped in the failing light
like a mute maw anguished,
roots unanchored, failing,
drip-dripping muddy tears 
in a disinterred void.
Silence now except for
moisture's music drumming,
a chorus of water 
drops and weeps and seeps,
melancholy melody
foretelling the dirt work
now underway, today,
two months after the storm.
Excavator guided
by imagination,
plans, words, hasty field notes,
and the dexterity
of shrewd operators
slicing precisely and
scraping layers of sod,
then soil, then clay away.
Worry wells within for
savage scars unsettle,
whether microburst rought
or man and machine made.
But Rosslyn's fertile ground —
robust, resilient, and
memory of ages —
will nourish and nurture,
lifting lofty notions
and simplest seedlings
from rudiments and seeds
to safe sanctuary
and towering glories.

Goût de Terroir

Let’s chock this post up to poetic license. Sometimes poems (and sometimes stories) are more effective than nonfiction prose, I find. Hopefully some of you will grasp what I’m grappling with, the tenuous connections I’m making, the profound faith in this healing property that has, since 2006, guided us through transition after transition.

Why poetic license? Well, for one thing the French idea of “terroir” (literally soil or earth) is usually used in reference to wine, specifically the aroma and flavor profile as derived from the environment within which the grapes have been grown and, more loosely, the wine produced. So the idea as used by those of us who enjoy wine usually encompasses the geographic location and characteristics such as soil composition, climate, and topographical siting. I think it’s fair to extrapolate from this usage a broader albeit agricultural application of the term, but I’m trying to amplify the idea a bit further. Needless to say, this poem is still a work in progress…