In Praise of the Sun-Cloud-Rain-Lightning Icon
Pictograph of our actual days
with a chance of everything.
Patience, honey. Air will send
live updates.
Sit still with your unsatisfied heart.
I know you want
“an answer”
but
oh, to abandon odds
for a thumbnail hinting
all options are equal
so none is exactly likely.
Or in the long view,
given infinite skies
the probability of all events
tends toward one.
But no. To abandon odds
is to abandon panic, panic
that cancels picnics,
sticky bike trips to nowhere.
The wheel has one bright spot
and that is enough.
Add your applause
to the tentative plaudits
of its makers:
imagine the colloquium
at the Conference of New Meteorology
—convened in a field
of thistles, bugged wind,
rim lit up in pre-storm glow—
to adopt for the future
an ideogram of doubt
and sing its song
maybe, maybe.