The Doomed Tornado

Up in long bands of gray and white angry clouds are whirling, fingers stretch downwards to the ground, faint traces of swirling. the farmer sees it and suspects what nature is unfurling. Glad at least it came in the day, not stole in come evening, he locks the barn and heads downstairs, in basement remaining. The air moans loudly when it starts, vortex boldly roaring, snaps tree-trunks off like they’re matchsticks, Sends the branches soaring. Birds fly off in a panicked flock, much too scared for crowing, the wheat flexes, and flattens low, disturbed from its growing. A mad chaos, its motion blurred by the rush of spinning, if any storm-chasers lived here, you know they’d be grinning. But alas, this is not the plains, with their F-5s looming, oh no, this is upstate New York, and those hills aren’t moving. The block the flow, they interrupt, winds are quickly fading, it barely lasted three minutes, the dark whorl abating.