a still moment, 
after the frenzied four winds 
blew the dust away 

Copyright 2022 Brenda Davis Harsham

Notes: The underwater volcanic eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai on January 15, 2022 sent a plume of steam 19 miles high. The wind it created circled the globe four times. A 15-foot tsunami hit nearby Tongo in the South Pacific. My sympathies to the people who suffered. To me, most surprising of all was that hurricane winds were blown into space — I didn’t know that events on earth could reach space without the intervention of rockets.  To me, the news articles (linked to above from CNN and Cosmos) in combination with yesterday’s high winds, turned into poetry, as so many things do. Take a moment to enjoy the magic of a world where instruments in Florida can “hear” and register a volcanic eruption in Tongo, half the world away. We’re all connected by the winds. 

Songs by the Grateful Dead and Fats Domino celebrated the Four Winds. The Four Winds were named in Greek Mythology for the directions:

• North — Boreas or Aquilo;
• West — Zephyrus or Favonius;
• South — Notus or Auster; and
• East — Eurus. — Bullfinch’s Mythology