Here is the still summer air

Before the sudden storm . . .

He walking the familiar field

And the approaching thunder

That no longer warns him home.

In the west the sky is bruising

A sickly green and purple . . .

Then wind washing the wheat

In swirls and eddies that take

His breath, and his fear, away. 

The western sky coalescing

To a thick malevolent black . . .

Joining green sky and green ground

In a death-shape dark and malignant,

Ominous and growing, implacable

As the black shadow on his x-rays

And black blood he tastes each night.

He kneels there in the tornadic air,

Head bowed in a fervent silent prayer:

Let the sudden save him from the slow.