Challenging Poetry

tornado drill

every Wednesday
at three thirty, precisely,
tornado sirens practice their wailing
for thirty seconds, then fall silent.
I hear them—north, east,
south, echoing around the county
from the tops of elementary schools
and post offices, reminding us
that someday, some night,
they will sound in earnest,
and they are ready to take up the call.

when it storms,
we gather together
around the television.
a storm watch shuts down every broadcast—
for a map with the storm drawn
in green rain and red wind.
—look, we say. it’ll pass south of us.
the sirens sound over the whole county,
even when the danger zone
lies miles away.
if it looks close,
we gather the blankets together
in the hall,
and listen for the wails to stop.
there is no low point in this house.

one afternoon, during a line of thunder
that stretched up from
the southwest as tall as the sky,
a notch formed, the wind spun,
the sirens sounded,
and the children, heard the sirens
from overhead, and ducked
into the hallway,
their bags already packed to leave.
their parents waiting in lines
of parked cars stretching
for blocks around the school,
listening to the radio shouting at them
to take shelter,
but the children couldn’t be released
into the storm, and the adults
were not allowed in
to the shelter of the school.

tornado sirens wail most often
in the afternoon and evening,
as the wind changes temperature
and builds strength.

I listen, every time,
when the sirens practice.
someday, during a storm,
the tornado sirens will sound
at precisely three thirty,
and they won’t stop.

Every place has its own dangers. I wouldn't like to live in California, like my brother, but it was strange to me when I came back from England and my family had moved to Tennessee. I left from Maryland, where they didn't have tornado drills. But it's always struck me as strange that they set off the sirens once a week--right in the beginning of the most dangerous time for tornados. Half the time, we don't even hear it, anymore.

The school thing happened to my sister. What was worst for the kids was that the sirens were on the roof of the school, so by the time it was over, they were nearly deaf. After that tornado got a school a couple of years ago (in Moore, OK), I thought back to that time, and was a bit sick to my stomach.