Friday, July 06, 2012

Poetry Friday -- Storm Chasing



TORNADO WEATHER
by Vincent Wixon

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

(read the whole poem at The Writer's Almanac)

TORNADO WEATHER describes the lead-up to the storm -- the sudden change of temperature. The first stinging raindrops. The greenish sky.  Violet Nesdoly's amazing extended haiku LIGHTNING (from Poetry Friday last week) describes what it feels like to be in the middle of the lashing, flashing storm.

Last Friday morning, we had no inkling of the storm that would barrel down on us later that afternoon, ripping mature trees out of the ground and breaking smaller trees off like matchsticks.

Our house was only without power for 72 hours. I got an email from a friend whose service was restored last night at 11:00, after 7 DAYS without power. I'm sure there are still folks without power, or who, like our neighbor who lost his home when a tree fell on it, felt their lives veer suddenly in a new direction last Friday.

Here's the weirdest thing about this Poetry Friday post. I started this post last Thursday, intending to use a picture of an Eastern Colorado storm and the story of chasing it. Then I got distracted by the Wordle revision fun and set this post aside for later use. So was there really no inkling of the storm, or???

Tabatha has today's Poetry Friday roundup at The Opposite of Indifference.

10 comments:

  1. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I took some video of our storm Sunday night. Fortunately we didn't lose power and it was mostly "for show ".

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  2. Glad the power's back on and that you are safe. Much of the news footage was quite frightening to see.

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  3. We heard much about your storm here, so sorry for everyone who has to face Mother Nature in that way. Even a few hours without electricity is tough. The poem is lovely, captures the tension of the farmer and the wife. I love this "Women stand on their porches
    and the air turns cool.
    They shiver, hug their sleeveless arms" Can't you just see it? Thanks Mary Lee. Interesting how you waited, an insider's feeling?

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  4. I suddenly have a need to reread Night of the Twisters. Thanks Mary Lee for always connecting your blogs to real-life!

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  5. I can related. We had the same storm. We were without power for 5 days. It was dreadful! One neighborhood had so many trees/lines down they could not even drive out of it for many days.

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  6. Hi, Mary Lee - glad you escaped the worst of it, and prayers for those who didn't.

    The poem reminds me of my mother's stories of growing up in a tenant farmer family in Arkansas. (My story based on that appeared in Highlights in April 2011 - the original didn't have enough conflict, so I threw in a tornado - they called them "twisters" - which struck while the father was plowing. That upped the tension!)

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  7. Oh Mary Lee, I didn't know you were in that dreadful power-outage storm we heard about right across the continent.

    The poem you link at the top sure resonates. I grew up on a farm where mom did call us in, while she listened for the whine of the tractor.

    (And thank you so much for the kind words about the stormy haiku :)

    Violet

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  8. Great poem. That is a weird thing about being led to a different poem and then the storm. Hopefully we will see that poem someday soon. Glad you are okay.

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  9. So glad to to hear you made out okay through the storm. The poem is such a picture in itself. Interesting how you saved it and it holds so much more meaning now.

    We left for a family camping vacation to West Virginia this past Sunday...WOW, we had no idea how bad it was there. We got home yesterday after deciding that the heat, no power, and little activities due to so much devastation was too much to deal with. We did take in the New River Bridge and the surrounding water falls it offered, that was a highlight!

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  10. I'm glad you made it through the storm with wondering, but little damage.

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