11-27-2013, 12:10 AM
If you live in tornado alley you quickly learn,
storm sirens are not something one should take lightly.
So when the twister touched down in Greensburg,
Bobby and Joan were already hiding in the root cellar.
Childless, beneath the floorboards of their home,
with enough food and water to last them about a week.
They huddled in the damp dark and consoled each other,
while everything above ground perished in the wind.
At dawn in the cruel silence of dead roosters and cattle,
those still alive assembled to mourn over rubble;
the town an atomized prairie desperate for emergency aid.
Nine months later, a miraculous boom of rainbows.
storm sirens are not something one should take lightly.
So when the twister touched down in Greensburg,
Bobby and Joan were already hiding in the root cellar.
Childless, beneath the floorboards of their home,
with enough food and water to last them about a week.
They huddled in the damp dark and consoled each other,
while everything above ground perished in the wind.
At dawn in the cruel silence of dead roosters and cattle,
those still alive assembled to mourn over rubble;
the town an atomized prairie desperate for emergency aid.
Nine months later, a miraculous boom of rainbows.