In Tornado Weather
wet-ash light
blows across the road
I'm driving with my foot to the floor
sixty miles over flat midwestern highway
driving to hear poetry
the sky ready
to boil over, a lid clamped on
the pressure drops
flattens the landscape further
I watch the horizon for state troopers
think of the wind:
one hundred miles to the west it has
sliced the top off a hospital
smashed two miles of Kalamazoo
nothing anyone will read tonight
is wild enough
By Judith Kerman
I love the thrill for the narrator. The journey is far greater than the destination. As cool as it is to see a person drive through a tornado to hear poetry, the real poetry is doing it. For the narrator the trip is poetry, and, "nothing anyone will read tonight/is wild enough!"
ReplyDeleteMy first couple readings, I was annoyed with the lack of punctuation. But as always, I didn't focus on the title until I read it a few times. Then the wildness of the lack of punctuation really brings out the essence of the landscapes, flattened, sliced, smashed, etc.
“The real poetry is in doing it”! YES! Yes...
DeleteHow it is that we start to think less and experience more...
Does this not remind you of the epic Twister movie??!! Probably one of my most-watched movies of all times. Accelerator to the floor for the chase, the history, the thrill..
ReplyDeleteThe line that I keep wanting to read is “driving to hear poetry”...there’s so much understanding here...like the times we chase the sunset down to that perfect spot just to watch it go. But the funny thing, as you mentioned, is that all of it all is poetry....can we really chase something that’s always there?? This poem reminds me of the thrill of living, of being the witness as well as the experienc-E.