Storm's coming ☔️

Common Measure Season 1, Poem 5

You’ll find no leeside, since the storm

You’ll find no leeside, since the storm
Gales omnidirectional.
Its several loci—though dispersed—
Like you, our child, and I are one.

How shall I guard our palisade?—
With resources to reinforce
But three of four windbreaking walls:
I spread them thin, or choose our fate 

And hope, in vain, the weak one holds.

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Vocab

“Lee side,” [leeside] the side of something that is sheltered from the wind

“Omnidirectional,” in every direction

“Loci,” pl. ‘locus’; a place, point, or position

“Palisade,” a fence made of wood or iron stakes

Explanation

The logic poem can be understood as follows:

There is a storm blowing from all four directions at once. You only have enough resources (sticks, for example) to properly reinforce 3 of your house’s four walls. So you have two choices. You can either shore up 3 walls very well, or spread out the resources to protect all four walls, but poorly. 

The storm of this poem could be basically anything. What “the storm” is to you is likely slightly different than what it is to me. However, what everyone’s storm has in common is that it does not wait for you to be prepared. 

Lesson

You see the storm on the horizon, but it is too late to properly prepare for it. You have to do what you can with the time and resources you have. Lamenting its approach is natural, but futile. Accept your situation and make the best of it.

Of course, we face collective storms as well. And it might be the case that, while alone your stockpile is too small, together we have enough material to mount a solid defence—but now I have taken us outside the scope of the poem.

The simile of the family

“Its several loci, though dispersed—

Like you, our child, and I—are one.”

I compared the storm to a separated family. I.e., the family members are apart, but they are still one as a family.

I came to the separated family simile by thinking about climate change and displacement; about climate refugees. 

Scansion (poem specs)

9 lines

Iambic tetrameter 

Rhyme scheme: blank verse

Titled after the 1st line