Palm Trees in a Big Blow

Palm Trees in a Big Blow

In Baytown on the Mexican Gulf,
Native Indians can smell it coming
days before.

They tell us a "big blow"
is on the way. Palms line the streets
and, I was told, mother nature bends
her children's tall tops so their
long hair tickles the leaves of lawns.

I wait with great excitement
for my first sea storm to show.
It shall be like God
and Louis Armstrong
marching down the streets

to my little white house and
knocking on the door, singing
like lost winds in a rush,
filling every room with cornets,
reminding me how close hell could be.