Wreckhouse

Exhaustion by a thousand gusts,
Wind is mostly irritating,
Wouldn’t you agree? Not deadly,
Not often, not like sudden floods.

(Stunt weather reporters report
In gales moving faster than trucks,
But you never see one standing
With a mic astride a flash flood.)

Still, there are those rare places where
Killer winds can earn their own names.
Wikipedia says Lockie
MacDougall, farmer and trapper,

Born to Wreckhouse in Newfoundland,
Town named for sometimes fatal wind,
Had a natural sense for change,
Earning him twenty bucks a month

For thirty years, a whole career,
Predicting when the wind would turn
Violent enough to wreck trains
Along the Newfoundland Railway.

Now there was a prophet, a seer
More worthy than those in scriptures.
Don’t you wish you had such a skill,
Knew which way the wind is blowing?