By: Hunter Christian
Massive rain clouds have been stalled,
Over the southern Great Plains for days
Torrential rains fall
Evacuations were ordered – yet bullheaded folks stubbornly stay
And, the Red River of the South is rising
Its riverbanks strain to hold back;
the ebb and the flow
The mud and clay banks begin to crack
Anxiety grows
Farmers and ranchers stack sandbags on top of earthen levees
Fear reigns heavy
Darker clouds build to the north-northwest
More rain will surely come
Heretofore, sermons spewed about when the Red River will crest,
Becoming an obsession for some
The angry mob decries that, at all cost, the angry river must be tempered, must be wrest
To flood waters hardy folks deign it a damned failure to succumb
Rugged communities blessed at God’s behest
Protestants, Methodists, Presbyterians, and all the rest
Including a small community of forty or so Syrians
For life, fortunes, and land; families dutifully appressed
Invested too are the Russian Orthodox Catholic Siberians
Also represented are the Eastern Orthodox Church for Liberians
A goodly priest from Algiers calms sullen fears
White men, black men, American and foreign shed God-fearing tears
Drought sent tithings into arrears
To a drunkard estranged wildcatter the face of Jesus himself appears
All stand around him with mouths agape and minds amazed
With a Godly boom from the skies above thunderclaps concuss unready ears
The Red River rises as hands raise
To the Father; to whom they pray and praise
Rumbling thunder makes the communities\' children wary
A lightning bolt strike ignites fire on the parched prairie
Feuding Texans join forces with rival Oklahomans
To wrangle cattle to safety despite ongoing generational borderland disputes
All the while, Southern Baptist preachers decry End Times omens, and;
to alleged cowboy debauchery their sermon loudly imputes
The Red River of the South swells higher
as prairie fire engulfs a quaint North Texas town
Burning a Southern Baptist church from its rusted spire;
down to the reddish-brown hardpan Texan caliche ground
Floodwaters crest, grasslands afire, the situation becomes menacingly dire
Descending from the hauntingly dark clouds above without warning, a funnel cloud touchdown smacks violently upon the hardpan within a flurry of ominous sounds
Like an angry freight train with a death wish on a runaway torrent
Trembling feet holdfast to shaking ground
In the glazed-over eyes of God\'s faithful subjects aghast, the sight of the a mile-wide tornado reflects frighteningly abhorrent
From the swirling anger of the twister\'s blackening winds,
timber, glass, and townsfolk\'s keepsakes and artifacts are sent violently aloft
A voice cries out, “Did Armageddon hath begin”?
Waters break through compromised levees; trickling through walls of dirt and grass weakened and soft
The fires on amber grassland burn increasingly hotter and ever more intensely
Breathing becomes laborious as air inhaled into the inhabitants lungs weighs deadly heavy
Into action go emergency plans hatched in a frenzy
Then, hitting everyone’s eyes with terror, comes the most horrific of sights;
when into the ominous blackened skies,
the tempestuous tornado plucks children from the hardpan ground, tossing their tiny trembling bodies upwards into flight
From the mouths of horrified onlookers, the words “Oh, my God!” rise, as terror invades petrified eyes
Still, the river’s blood red waters spill over its broken banks
It would not relent
Frenetic paced men shovel, labor, sweat, and bleed with backs bent
To heaven, while down on bending knees, the devout and faithful folks send prayers of reprieve and thanks
Down river, within a crimson rush, a family’s house dislodges from its foundation and away it went!
Chaos ensues as chaos will –
with no leaders to lead
Amidst the chaos, intrepid shovels continue to shovel to fill –
spots in fractured levees where the river was freed
Raging water washes away soil as it washes away planted seed
Just as the fury seemingly could not get any more ominous or any worse;
from Mother Nature’s wicked deed,
the tornado tearing through the Texas panhandle like a wretched curse,
Bringing hell to the Red River Valley exactly between prime and terce,
In a blink of a tearful eye,
By the time the clocks ticked past sext and none,
The blackened skies clear
And…
God\'s Wicked Triad was done
After much consternation, the levees held; and the day was won
Between the following morning’s prime and terce,
clouds had cleared, yielding respectfully to a scorching late springtime sun
Nary a word spoken by the townsfolk concerning forced attrition, the cost of penance, retribution, or consequences of wayward folks punished and cursed,
Nope, back to the fields farmers went, with stern directives from ranch owners, back to the range roughneck cowboys were sent,
And when that first Sunday after the Wicked Triad abated, off to their prospective churches went devout fathers, mothers, daughters and sons
In the American southwest, the Red River of the South runs