Poem for Tuesday and Post-Storm Flowers

Tornado Warning
By Joyce Sutphen

That is not the country for poetry.
It has no mountains, its flowers
are plain and never poisonous,
its gardens are packed into blue mason jars.
There are no hedges bordering the roads, the sky
flies up from the ditches, loose in every
direction.
          Yet I knew it to be passionate,
even in its low rolling hills, where a red
tractor pushed through the oat field, cutting
down gold straw and beating a stream
of grain into the wagon trailing behind
in the stubble,
          I knew it to be melodious
in its birch woods, leaves shadowing
a stone-strewn river, the path along the bank
softened with pine needles, sunlight
woven in and out of branches, the many
colors of green, solid as a pipe organ's
opening chord,
          I knew it would haunt
the memory with its single elm,
where a herd of cows found shade
in the July heat, their bony tails
swinging the tufted bristle left and right
over the high ledge of a hip bone,
while at the horizon, a black fist
of storm came on, something not
to be averted, something singular
in its fury,
          as any blind heart knows.

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Monday started warm, then a couple of huge thunderstorms blew through, taking out the remaining cherry blossoms and sending our cats to hide down the basement. I didn't do much of note, in part because I was saving my work every few seconds in case the power went out. I had internet arguments with several NeverBiden hashtag friends which I'm sure accomplished nothing. I waver between being glad Bernie endorsed Joe so quickly and furious because if he'd done the same with Hillary, we might not be in this shitshow. I wrote a post about the assault allegations that got me defriended by someone and I don't even know who yet.

We had leftovers for lunch, took a walk after the last storm to enjoy the coming azaleas and tulips, and I dyed my roots because I'm fine with wearing slob clothes and never wearing makeup even when I'm not social distancing but I can't deal with an inch of gray at the temples. Paul made Thai basil faux chicken and peanut noodles for dinner, which were awesome, then we watched two episodes of Antiques Roadshow and one of The Witcher (time jump threw me but Yennefer and Ciri are keeping my attention). Here's how the neighborhood looked after the rain, though we didn't get a rainbow because of the angle of the clouds: