Stormfront, U.S.A.

 

House is quiet

Trees are still

Tall grass standing frozen as if

Trying not to draw the notice of a swaggering mower

Sound like a stone quarry off towards town

— A storm is percolating in the west.

 

The de-icer blue sky decays

A clotted gray-green, thick fungi on the afternoon

The smell of dirt in the air

A humid held breath;

No lodge prattle

No song of insects, susurration of frogs

or gospel choir of birds

The quick stink of burnt ozone

and a shockshow of lightning rattles through

flexing flash with a warning to nature:

“You aren’t tough enough to deflect, we’re here

Under the highest authority.”

 

The first fistful of droplets on the eaves

A herald to the blitz

Suddenly silence followed by a

Tornado wind and

The clouds purge, liquifying the landscape

Shattering trees and ravaging all they're expected

To nourish

As if every angel in someone’s heaven

Were power-pissing from the other side of

The gloom in a contest

To see who could cause the most irreparable damage

For the sake of getting away with it while cackling

 

And they’ve succeeded in breaking up all

The driveway basketball games, leaving

Swing sets only to be ridden by the bullyish wind

And as the town gets battered down

Folks are cloistered in cellars and sitting rooms with

Discomfited stares and

Crackle-clutter radios

Keeping away from the windows and

Wondering aloud how friends and neighbors

Might be faring as if someone in the room

Were in on the show and knew how it would

All play out

But mostly talking to cover the thought

Looping beneath their hats and hairdos –

“Will I live to see this end, and if so,

Will there be anything worth rebuilding when it does?”