Between panic & flow.
Poetry from an extended tornado season.
“Storm Warning”…
Act I:
a storm is an improvisation: many forces saying yes to the present conditions. many forces pouring in to the present conditions with gusto! pouring in, you make your own wind with gusto! the eye of the storm looks clear from heaven-- you make your own wind saying yes. the eye of the storm looks clear from heaven. a storm is an improvisation. [Video & poem: Playing through a massive thunderstorm, August 4th, 2024]
Act II:
a fire warning flood warning tornado warning: watch for signs. flood warning! grab what matters, watch for signs. in a rapidly evolving situation, grab what matters- you're faster than last time. in a rapidly evolving situation you were born into, you're faster than last time- (tornado warning!) you were born into a fire warning. [Video: The actual tornado that wiped out Neon's nephew's house this year (*they survived & found their pets). Poem: "act fast or die!/ get to your 'safe space'!/ more tornado sirens all night" July 16th, 2024]
Coming from the heart of fire country, our move to tornado country’s constant sirens has been both oddly familiar —and yet!— disorientingly terrifying. We still keep our bugout bag ready to go (documents, flashlights, knives, pills, cat food…), but amazingly it feels we have even less time to prepare for disaster than before.
The sky here just changes too quick. And all anyone can do is guess whether the air is gonna get “cyclonic”.
It’s not like hurricanes— I’ve lived with those too— there, you have a few days’ warning. And out West, even with a fast-moving fire, you’ll *often* have a heads-up. Thousands and thousands of acres might be on fire for months in every direction and then there’s a foul wind and the alert texts start coming in.
Though not always! We certainly came far too close, far too fast, a number of times with Oregon and California fires. And that sort of act-fast-panic sticks with you at a cellular level…
And these tornado sirens have been going off all summer.
Neon’s grandma asked us recently, “Well, would you prefer tornadoes or fires???”
We were kind of like, “Well, grandma…we don’t necessarily want to have to choose?”
But, I guess this is the panic we’re choosing, for now?
Here’s a serendipitous prompt for you that I happened to read this morning from a list of great prompts penned throughout 2020, by
:“52. Tornadoes can fully pluck chickens but leave them alive.
[This is true.]”
This could be your orienting concept, a metaphor, a secret, your first line, your punch line or lead you somewhere else entirely….Just crack your notebook and go with it.
I’ll be with you, here in Iowa, somewhere between panic and flow…
xo,
