Relentless

Daring the winged to rise against it,
a sad product of our past mistakes,
energized by a clash of temper-atures
the violence of a storm arises, breaks
into the malaise of an unsuspecting day.

Darkening clouds of bad news
release the electric shock of lightning
sparking between polar opposites,
thunder, the rumble of trouble headed our way.

Showers then torrents of rain harden into hail,
as gust after gust of relentless wind
force a path between and through and around,
spinning apart what we thought sturdy
and flooding the land with malcontent.

For hours that undo a lifetime,
we hunker down in hallways and closets,
listening to the terrible rhetoric
of destruction, wait for the noise to subside.

Emerging from our hiding places,
shaken, we survey the heartbreaking damage.
Desperate for the safety of the familiar,
like escapees, we call out to one another,
compare injuries, share our grief,

as we ponder what we must do
before the next ruthless furor finds us.

COPYRIGHT Anne McCrady, 2025

NEWSLINKS: Weather.com, Reuters, The Guardian, Axios

AUDIOLINKS: SoundCloud