woke up to pounding on the roof and glass shattering upstairs, and then downstairs, where we have lots of old many-paned windows. big pieces of hail were pounding us and breaking the glass. i was in a daze, because i had been dreaming something wild, even though it was early, maybe ten p.m. we looked outside to see what was going on but quickly decided not to step out there; the pelting was strong and getting stronger. my wife actually saw the wind shift from hard west to hard east.

after it died a little, we counted the panes, maybe 15 of them, on 12 windows. we patched them with cardboard and strapping tape; in the morning we had someone come out and board them up. our house is now darker and cooler, with much less sun coming in. seems like the season to stay inside days, anyway, until the evening: do your work in the morning, lay low all afternoon under a cool fan, come out at night. the trouble is, i have 59 years of programming that works against this pattern, and still wants to do stuff in the afternoon, while i'm awake.

went out for a walk last night, already two nights from the storm, and some power company guys were hanging out at the edge of the park, eleven pm maybe, with their radios on, trying to decide what to fix next. nearby was a streetlight that had fallen; the bulb of it, unbroken, was still in the street. piles of brush everywhere. the city pleaded with its citizens: if you are not aged and infirm, please take your brush to the city park, if you can. i took offense, of course i'm not aged, i'm only 59. so i loaded up two vans full of the stuff and took it down there.

the insurance guys said they were too busy, because all their people were up in the amarillo area, maybe they had a big weather event too; maybe it was worse than ours, or at least earlier. we actually had paint damage because the hail was like a sandblaster. we probably had roof damage too. who knows, but i guess we'll find out.

i realize that working on my poetry like a fanatic is a kind of escapism and keeps me from much more serious concerns, like what's happening to all the children, including the grown ones. i don't always know what i can do but i worry a lot and that may be about the only thing, at least for the moment. the younger ones need attention too, but lately i've mostly been doing this ostrich thing. i don't know why. it was something about kerrville, that made me just want to put a cap on it, describe it, put it in one spot. 50 states, d.c., a kind of web version in constant need of repair, and about a quarter of them in need of serious revision. but it's up to about 730 now, a fair number, a collection. the 2013 version, due on the fourth. summer is settling in here. the sun is coming out for serious now.

i realize whole towns in oklahoma have been laid to waste. the government is reading everyone's e-mail and facebook, not to mention blogs, and bombing people randomly in pakistan, yemen and afghanistan. weather systems have gone haywire partly because people are keeping their trucks running, just to stay out of the heat. and people in towns like this are pulling water up from the aquifer, just to get a green feeling, the soft feeling of grass and normalcy, that you can't get in a totally arid environment.

and i stay home, writing, waiting 'til night to go out, and even then, just walking around this park. one side of me is just afraid, afraid of the future. sometimes i think, everything will work out. other times, i'm just not so sure. i guess we're all like that.