Mid-western May

Mid-western May

Thunder.
Heavy winds.
Straight on,
sometimes turning.
Nature contorting.
Anxious interstate calls
back and forth,
worried waiting!
So far everyone's OK.
So...
Life goes on.

Whoops! Watch out ya'll!
Here comes another one!


Wow! What a spring we have had here in the mid-west and south so far this year, and the season has barely begun. More that 200 tornados reported all over the south and the mid-west just in the space of about 3 weeks. More than the entire season last year!

This little poem began to germinate the other day shortly after I had spent about half an hour trying to figure out how to get through to my sister in Oklahoma City after the tornado in the southern part of that city. The tornado came within a city block or two of her neighborhood. The very next day that city suffered another tornado to it's northern half.

In 1999 a tornado also came within two blocks of the home she was living in at that time. It came within 100 yards of the house she had gone to to wait out the storm.

We have had plenty of the bad stuff here in Arkansas as well. More than once I have stood outside my apartment and watched writhing, turning masses of clouds pass over.

Like people in hurricane country, I think those who have lived with tornados for a long time gain a sort of partial immunity to their fear. I take them seriously, yet the fear seems to translate into a sort of awed excitelment. I love to watch the cloud to cloud lightening that sometimes comes with them. I always prepare my hidey place and get my dog and cat into it, then I go watch outside with some of my neighbors, with the TV weather reports turned up loud so I can hear the radar track and tornado chaser's reports. A week or two ago we actually had a sort of Tornado Party in one of my friends apartments during an especially violent storm. One of the upstairs neighbors with a child had come down for safety reasons. It was fun. We were all really hyped up on adrenaline.

Anyway, here is my poem. A bit serious, but meant to have a touch of humor at the end.