We Wait

WE WAIT

A “particularly dangerous situation”
Is the atmosphere we’re wearing today,
Or so says the Storm Prediction Center
In Oklahoma. And they know
about these things in Norman.

We’ve heard this threat for days now.
Every weatherman has spoken the word.
It’s the conversation in every huddle in every town.

“Life-threatening storms” is scrawled across
The rectangle of Kansas.
“Large, long-tracking tornadoes” is our fate today.
Disaster kits are mentioned: flashlights, radios, batteries.
Consider yourself on your own for 72 hours, they say,
Until help arrives with food and water.

And so it began this morning:
A tornado watch box. One.
And now the story grows.

Strong gusts blow here now.
Restless clouds open and close
the sky a dozen times in an hour.

We wait…
For the miss, for the hit, for the worst.

Northern Kansas
Takes the first tornado warning.
But those warnings will be handed down,
Moved along the map, all day, all night.

“Historic storms,” they suggest. I cringe.

A hundred tornadoes perhaps.
Hail as big as a fist.

We wait.

~ Cheryl Unruh, April 14, 2012.