They say you can still see

The scars on the bricks

In that Ohio town when

The chill wind blew

Dust and paper as prelude

To the devil’s dark.

All before the black clouds rolled

Beyond the water tower

It didn’t matter that they set

The trailer mounts in limestone

Or tied them down with guy wires

Or that people ran to gather toys and

Anything loose from the mottled grass

They will show you where Larry Larsen

Was standing when his car was lifted

By the devil wind and he was speared

Through an oak tree as if he had been a javelin

They will show you the bare plot where

The schoolhouse stood,

Not with the old pastel gaiety or the flower show

Down at the Legion Hall. There were so many flowers

At the children’s funerals that people say

The smell of lilies sickens them.

As for the water-tower?

Such a spindly-legged thing, some of them say

Wonder how it still stands to this day, others say

The cyclone roaring like a train gone mad

The keening wind the devil’s shriek

That April day .

God’s will, the minister said

Fighting back his tears, since

His daughter’s battered body was

One of 17 that lay in the varnished coffins

Before the altar, 3 days after the black cloud

Had rolled beyond the water tower.

Hail and snow and thunderstorms came

In the 28 years since.

The Ohio River flooded once

And took away fifteen houses

Down by the high school field

Not a tornado since ’74, though, and some say

It was a fluke, a once-in-a lifetime thing

But in the hot summer, when the dust devils

Pick up sand, even the children spy the

Sky in fear, and hope against the rolling of a

Black cloud beyond the water tower.

04/22/2003

Author's Note: A diversion from most APs', written after learning the meterological fact that the United States has the most violent weather extremes in the world, and that the forces of wind and water, in the form of tornadoes and hurricanes, imperil us more than we sometimes know. Also, based loosely on the terrible tornado that ripped Xenia, Ohio apart in the spring of 1974. Re-edited 4/25/03..thanks Kate, for you keen insights

Posted on 04/22/2003
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch