Where were the greenhouses going, <br />Lunging into the lashing <br />Wind driving water <br />So far down the river <br />All the faucets stopped?— <br />So we drained the manure-machine <br />For the steam plant, <br />Pumping the stale mixture <br />Into the rusty boilers, <br />Watching the pressure gauge <br />Waver over to red, <br />As the seams hissed <br />And the live steam <br />Drove to the far <br />End of the rose-house, <br />Where the worst wind was, <br />Creaking the cypress window-frames, <br />Cracking so much thin glass <br />We stayed all night, <br />Stuffing the holes with burlap; <br />But she rode it out, <br />That old rose-house, <br />She hove into the teeth of it, <br />The core and pith of that ugly storm, <br />Ploughing with her stiff prow, <br />Bucking into the wind-waves <br />That broke over the whole of her, <br />Flailing her sides with spray, <br />Flinging long strings of wet across the roof-top, <br />Finally veering, wearing themselves out, merely <br />Whistling thinly under the wind-vents; <br />She sailed until the calm morning, <br />Carrying her full cargo of roses.<br /><br />Theodore Roethke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/big-wind/
