Wilberforce

Wilberforce was just down the road,

But grandma was the only visitor we’d get from there.

Her trips stopped in a long-ago, early April

by a malevolent caller who lives in my daily nightmare.

Her words, winding through a life spent working with her husband

to raise a barn,

raise crops,

              raise a family

on top of a stop for the Underground Railroad,

left me longing for Sundays and the site of her worn Rambler

turning into the driveway.

Two weeks before Easter, in 1974, came a revelation like no other.

Nine years earlier and two years before I became her favorite surprise,

not long after Palm Sunday services let out, “the cyclone” arrived.

Grandpa told her he’d be back in a minute,

but it stopped his heart and closed his eyes.

My gaze grew fixed and my jaw dropped down.

My first story of loss happened just outside of town.

The next two days slipped by slower than an L&N freight.

My heart was heavy as I carried this story’s weight.

The word “cyclone” was replaced by “tornado”,

but little did I know, that not a few hours later,

it would be up the road from Wilberforce,
darkening my window.

Bleeding Kansas

"For God's sake, take cover now!"

I closed my eyes and sought refuge in presumed faith.

I learned the myth of the mound was blowing away from the TV's urgent plea.

Humidity transformed into a sickly, green hue.

I need to see what is coming, but the cedars block the view.

The rapidly increasing darkness and howl means the monster broke free.

Sirens rise to take a stand, join the fray.

Mom's at the store, dad's day at the Capitol just began. 
Alone. . . across the street to join the neighbors downstairs.
Inflow yanks at my feet, begging me to slip, and my eyes have to know.
Looking backward, I keep moving forward...it follows...I might be too slow!
Bathed in different light -- the dying sun, exploding blue arcs, headlights in the air.
The door latches, then leaves, along with everything else of where I just ran.

The roof on the garage collapsed when mom got home.
We didn't see dad until dawn, and he took me downtown to help right then.

The water tower stood like a sentinel.
A lone survivor amidst the broken homes and damaged capitol. 

The smell of lost secrets leaching from those broken cedars.
Washed away by sweat in a long summer spent burying the dead and reburying those secrets. 

 

I've got to legs back under me.

I've got to make it to Washburn...

I thought I thought my last thoughts as I dashed into the neighbor's basement just last summer.
That day, I started running  away from those plains, that mound, and its myth.
Straight to Basic, onto a plane, plunging into a plume of uncertain humidity.
Straight into the jungle...taking up John Brown's righteous, bloody charge…away from Kansas and the friends and family I loved.

"For God's sake, take cover now!"

I closed my eyes and sought refuge in a long-ignored faith.

Our defenses collapsed halfway down the hill. 

We lost the captain near dawn as the mortars came in.

I'm not going to get my legs back under me.

I'll never get back to Washburn...

Never again lay eyes back across those plains, that mound, and its myth.

Rather they fix on the canopy above, while a familiar scent of lost secrets carries me away.