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.