May 22, 2007

• Poem: “Tornado Weather” by Vincent Wixon, from
  The Square Grove: Poems. © Traprock Books, 2006.

  Tornado Weather

  1.
  Clouds build
  all day,
  hold west of the section.
  Plowing east he feels them
  piling
  darker, deeper.

  Wind through ankle high corn
  comes cold, dries his
  back,
  and he pushes the throttle a notch,
  checks the hills blurring
  between the wheels.

  At the field’s end he raises the shovels,
  as first
  drops darken his shirt.
  He shifts into high and opens the engine for
  home.
  The rain thickens, turns hard,
  pings off the tractor, bounces on the
  road,
  stings his bent head and back.

  He pulls under the
  cottonwood,
  covers the stack with a can,
  and sprints for the
  barn.

  2.
  Clouds hang low and come on—
  a black-green curtain wide as
  sky.
  The high leaves of the cottonwoods
  shudder for the first time all
  day.

  Women stand on their porches
  and the air turns cool.
  They
  shiver, hug their sleeveless arms,

  and listen for the tractor-whine
  of
  their husbands leaving the fields.
  They call the children from the
  barn,
  and turn inside to switch on the radio.

  • 6:06 pm
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