A member of the Dickinson Organization of Poetry Enthusiasts who lives in central Virginia takes a picture of the sky every day (the picutres are posted on Instagram by the account @daily_sky_pic).
With Hurricane Florence approaching the coast, making landfall, and now stalling over North Carolina, it's been ten days since Virginia and the mid-Atlantic states have seen blue skies.
Pictured at the left: The past nine days of gray skies as seen in central Virginia.
The gray skies called to mind Emily Dickinson's poem "A Cap of Lead across the sky." The poem certainly captures the gloomy atmosphere of the past few days -- although this storm has combined the "charms" of a sticky, humid summer -- rather than winter -- with hell.
By Emily Dickinson:
A Cap of Lead across the sky
Was tight and surly drawn
We could not find the mighty Face
The Figure was withdrawn –
A Chill came up as from a shaft
Our noon became a well
A Thunder storm combines the charms
Of Winter and of Hell.