It starts as soft breath

It starts as soft breath—
stillness stirred beyond itself to move—
combs grasses back
like the gentlest mother’s brush.

It then begins to hurry, fret,
rocking cars like restless babes,
leans against trees
like the deepest mother fatigue.

Nothing firmly rooted moves.
Boughs break and fall
clinging to new nests.

Birds mourn.
A roar
groans like birth.

Mother funnel delivers dark dust,
rotted cottonwoods,
rusty cadillacs, family photos,
white cribs, pink bathtubs,
precious darlings

into the trembling hands
of a yellow green sky
that cannot hold them
long enough to cry.

2014