Phenomenal

John Aberdein

Issued in the toughest terms,
way beyond the nominal,
the sea ill-Met on BBC 
was cast to be phenomenal.

Worse than rough or very high,
each wave might hump—
like steepling ghost by Hokusai—
then crash and dump.

A violent gust out in the yard
capsized three black bins:
our hydrocarbon bingeing
vomiting its sins.

Shall we shut out such message
or turn and get to grips—
torpedo oil-investment,
avert apocalypse?

The Science

As a former commercial fisherman and as someone who used to run the UK's largest educational kayaking dept (at Calshot Activities Centre in Hampshire) I have noted a marked recent increase in the use of the term phenomenal in UK Met. Office sea state forecasts. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) sea state code largely adopts the 'wind sea' definition of the Douglas Sea Scale, and Phenomenal is its descriptor for the final point of a 10 point scale (including zero), with predicted wave heights of over 14 metres. The Beaufort Wind Scale is a scale that the WMO also uses to relate wind speed to the size of swells.  The word phenomenal is in itself both scary and salutary. Yet, since sea state predictions do not form part of general weather forecasts in the UK, the term is not widely known in this context, nor is its significance appreciated. Nor of course, for that matter, is the linkage between rising world hydrocarbon usage and phenomenal seas and weather being addressed with sufficient urgency.

The Poet

After a degree in English at Aberdeen, John Aberdein worked as a west coast herring fisherman and scallop diver before teaching English and Outdoor Education in Fife, Hampshire and Orkney. In the wake of Chernobyl, as a member of SERA, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association, he was the lead grassroots coordinator of the case for a non-nuclear energy policy endorsed at the 1986 Conference of the Labour Party. He has written two award-winning novels, Amande's Bed and Strip the Willow, has three poems in the March/April issue of PN Review, and publishes a new poem each Sunday at www.doricplus.co.uk

Next poem: Predictable Text by Samantha Carr