When the weather turned
Crows settled about the house
Cawing daylong among the new leaves.
It would be a hard spring,
Folks said, the crows—
They know. There are folks
Up near where I come from
In Mississinewa County
Who study such things.
Folks who believe tornadoes
Are alive: that polluted streams
Rise from their beds
Like lepers, following after
Some great churning, twisting cloud.
With their own eyes
They’ve seen a cyclone stop,
Lap up electricity
From a substation, then make
A right-angle turn
And peel the roof off some
Prefabricated egg factory.
Thousands of hens, who’ve never seen
The light of the sun, or
Touched the earth with their beaks,
Go up the funnel like souls to God.