Start with the Sun
And Earth given a spin.
Invite a team of midwifes--
Ocean, mountain and plains.
Warm, moist airs from the tropics
Provide the egg
Which cold, dry airs
From polar hinterlands inseminate.
Cold air collides against the warm borders
Advancing here, stalemated there,
Sliding under and lifting
Making ready for the final thrust.
Eventually,
Somewhere along the polar dance line,
Warm air responds to the advances of the cold
And begins to dance,
Swirling,
Twirling,
Lifting
The warm air higher, ever higher.
.In an orgasmic release of latent energy
A cyclone is born.
First, only a small depression
In the global pressure field,
This nascent system would be
Among the privileged few
To grow to storm.
As is common in the natural world,
Many are conceived but few born.
Some fall to the appetite of adult storms.
But most young cyclones succumb
As infants, unable to
Find the adequate liquid nutrition
To sustain the life force.
Only a few survive,
Fewer still mature to a storm.
Today, however,
Over the Gulf of Alaska
An infant survives its natal day.
Now a fledgling
Thrust from the Gulf storm nest,
A young cyclone
Migrates south.