Tornado Forms and Passes Through

A tornado touched down here;
That doesn’t happen often

In the Midwest, I used to drive
Underneath funnel clouds forming
Within a sky of green and yellow

Sometimes the tornado formed
Sometimes it didn’t finish

Here there was the locomotive
Sound, and all things went awry

Gravestones lay flat upon the
Ground—parts of houses and
Other buildings rolled over
Discarded stone and memory

Roofs of schoolhouses pushed
Deep inside—the Amish will
Give to municipal authority

A list of broken property to
Be fixed in community, alone

The Red Cross Is here, while
We number what is lost,
Remembering simultaneously

What is to be thanked; for
This was a fatal happening

Yet stolid folk are quick to
Say it could have been much
Worse, because it has—retellings

From the cobwebbed past given
Anew to current, digital media

Meantime the sun remembers
To return to us a blessing now

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