Quadrangle 68 poetry
A Fresh Round of Tornadoes
We look to the garden, seizing the ripest morsels. We follow the tendrils toward sustenance, sense the closeness of soil. We are not uprooting, but claiming. (I pluck a heaving tomato too heavy for its vine. I have saved it from certain fate of fall and senseless rotting.) Our pride is in the bounty. And in our power over this earth. - The radio reports weather for the nation: “A fresh round of tornadoes.” Now we would pray for fruit already fallen and sapped unsubstantial, scattered; pray for no harvest, no pulling up roots. Place hope in tendrils holding fast to last until they shrivel. Now we pray for a stale, burned-out tornado; we fear the awesome power of a fresh round.