Tornado

Its bed is the forest.

It wakes and leaps out,

Shaking and overturning its bed.

It rushes into the cornfield-

A city of destitute mothers,

Crying and running;

Each cornstalk a mother, hugging

Her child of a corn-ear, shivering.

The cornfield, a city of mothers,

Prays in vain for the bankrupt sun.

Mothers fall smothering their children

At the very gates of the city.

Its cutting hoofs-

A thousand-footed caravan in the desert-

Prick and grind the elephant-hide

Of the waters into dust.

Waters groan like skinned-off animals.

It grabs the sunny back of the road

Like a pitiless child a cat,

And hurls it up in the air-

Twists it before the nose of the hiding sun,

Bullying, "Do you know who I am?"

Leon Serabian Herald