Author’s Note
The seeds of this story actually came from a conversation with a friend, many years ago, and a discussion about my writing inclinations and that one J.D. Salinger quote—you know, the one about how “poets are always taking the weather so personally,” from Nine Stories. And, well…everything I write is all about the personal and personified, so clearly I had to write some weather with some opinions! And then it very much wanted to be historical; the image in my head always involved Georgian waistcoats and dressing gowns, an ex-pirate and his poet standing together at a tall rain-lashed window, keeping each other warm and gazing out over a storm-whipped lake…very Byronic, but irresistible!
Tom has written a few poems about how it felt, lying there flirting with death, fighting
