| From Fargo, 1957 |
Every day
Maria Sanderson (1908-1964) was the first person
injured by the tornado. She lived on the outskirts of
Fargo on Highway 10. After a year in the hospital she
was released but never fully recovered from her
injuries. She died of a stroke in Minneapolis,
Minnesota on February 24, 1964.
1.
“No one knows
what ghost you feed.”
—Joel Oppenheimer
Even with the photocopied township map
printed in 1951, the homestead is nearly
impossible to find.
These are streets now, not backroads.
And the highway has become a four-laned
artery.
Finally, finding the mile line
and County Drain 40, we can almost make it
out.
There, behind those quonsets
a line of oak stand, older than
anything else here, older too,
than the storm. And from them,
we can almost see how it was—
a rebuilt house at the end of a gravel driveway
hidden—white walled—
between the hulking girth of commercial
buildings.
It was here she lived and
it was here she lay that night
after the storm came rolling through
from the northwest.
It was here she struggled
in the wreckage and shattered glass
until Theofil her husband
came and found her.
It’s Industrial Park now—
huge metal-walled complexes
on main streets and back streets.
Metal building complexes
cover what was then a clover field,
a wheat field, a field of corn.
And in the distance, where the city
glowed into the sky at night, there is no night.
The glow surrounds this place now,
nudging the night sky further
toward some even more obscure distance.
There, where the funnel first stomped the
ground,
twirling and twisting into itself
there is cement. And where it came through here
at an angle before turning into the city—
parking lots and semi trucks.
There where the telephone lines stood
and were knocked to the ground,
a water tower—
ballooning into the sky
in red and white swirls.
And where the fence leaned to the ground in
the wind,
identical storage units
as uniform as the niches in a columbarium.
Look here for her—
look in the cement and plowed over lawn,
pace out the distance from those trees
and there are only ghosts—
rebuilt remnants of lives
gone fumy and cloudy
by each decade.
And when you think to yourself
of the sadness of this complete disappearance,
remind yourself that this too awaits you,
and even less than this.
Who, one day, will walk the paved over
remnants of your homestead,
following the heel-to-toe pattern
of your house? Who, in some impossible-to-
imagine
hazy future, will look for the place you were
when
you looked up and saw your darkest fear
staring you down from the sky above you?
2. February 24, 1964
after Olav H. Hauge
The storm is gone now—
it is behind you
in some other place
on good days
you can barely remember.
Not once
in all this time since
have you ever asked
why?
why was it I was there?
why there?
and why now? and not then?
Why was my leg—
shattered to pieces
and embedded with grass, dirt
and everything else
the wind gave me—
taken from me?
You were just there—
in the storm,
in the churning wind.
See, it is possible
to live every day.
It is possible to get up,
to go feed birds in the cold morning
and to watch
as they choose between
bread and snow.
The whole day is there to think about
and there aren’t enough hours in it
or in one’s whole lifetime to consider it all.
And when it’s done, you can sit down
and listen as a wind softer and more exotic
than the one you hear in your nightmares
comes to you, touching your face
and whispering to you in a language
as strange, yet beautiful
as Chinese
or Norwegian.
Maria Sanderson (1908-1964) was the first person
injured by the tornado. She lived on the outskirts of
Fargo on Highway 10. After a year in the hospital she
was released but never fully recovered from her
injuries. She died of a stroke in Minneapolis,
Minnesota on February 24, 1964.
1.
“No one knows
what ghost you feed.”
—Joel Oppenheimer
Even with the photocopied township map
printed in 1951, the homestead is nearly
impossible to find.
These are streets now, not backroads.
And the highway has become a four-laned
artery.
Finally, finding the mile line
and County Drain 40, we can almost make it
out.
There, behind those quonsets
a line of oak stand, older than
anything else here, older too,
than the storm. And from them,
we can almost see how it was—
a rebuilt house at the end of a gravel driveway
hidden—white walled—
between the hulking girth of commercial
buildings.
It was here she lived and
it was here she lay that night
after the storm came rolling through
from the northwest.
It was here she struggled
in the wreckage and shattered glass
until Theofil her husband
came and found her.
It’s Industrial Park now—
huge metal-walled complexes
on main streets and back streets.
Metal building complexes
cover what was then a clover field,
a wheat field, a field of corn.
And in the distance, where the city
glowed into the sky at night, there is no night.
The glow surrounds this place now,
nudging the night sky further
toward some even more obscure distance.
There, where the funnel first stomped the
ground,
twirling and twisting into itself
there is cement. And where it came through here
at an angle before turning into the city—
parking lots and semi trucks.
There where the telephone lines stood
and were knocked to the ground,
a water tower—
ballooning into the sky
in red and white swirls.
And where the fence leaned to the ground in
the wind,
identical storage units
as uniform as the niches in a columbarium.
Look here for her—
look in the cement and plowed over lawn,
pace out the distance from those trees
and there are only ghosts—
rebuilt remnants of lives
gone fumy and cloudy
by each decade.
And when you think to yourself
of the sadness of this complete disappearance,
remind yourself that this too awaits you,
and even less than this.
Who, one day, will walk the paved over
remnants of your homestead,
following the heel-to-toe pattern
of your house? Who, in some impossible-to-
imagine
hazy future, will look for the place you were
when
you looked up and saw your darkest fear
staring you down from the sky above you?
2. February 24, 1964
after Olav H. Hauge
The storm is gone now—
it is behind you
in some other place
on good days
you can barely remember.
Not once
in all this time since
have you ever asked
why?
why was it I was there?
why there?
and why now? and not then?
Why was my leg—
shattered to pieces
and embedded with grass, dirt
and everything else
the wind gave me—
taken from me?
You were just there—
in the storm,
in the churning wind.
See, it is possible
to live every day.
It is possible to get up,
to go feed birds in the cold morning
and to watch
as they choose between
bread and snow.
The whole day is there to think about
and there aren’t enough hours in it
or in one’s whole lifetime to consider it all.
And when it’s done, you can sit down
and listen as a wind softer and more exotic
than the one you hear in your nightmares
comes to you, touching your face
and whispering to you in a language
as strange, yet beautiful
as Chinese
or Norwegian.
Sirens
Ah, so this
is what it will sound like!
This is that last
terrible sound.
This is the tune
the angel
will know
on that last unending Day
when he puts the
trumpet to his lips
and blows.
And today
like that awful last day
when we hear it
we scatter.
We stumble over each other
searching for shelter—
for safety—
from the wrath.
Let this not be
the last sound we hear!
Let this not be
what our ears hold fast
as we go up into the winds.
Rather,
let it be a whisper.
Let it be the quiet hush
of a warm breeze
at the end of the sweetest day.
Let it be the gentle
thud
of our pulsing life
gasping in our ears.
Ah, so this
is what it will sound like!
This is that last
terrible sound.
This is the tune
the angel
will know
on that last unending Day
when he puts the
trumpet to his lips
and blows.
And today
like that awful last day
when we hear it
we scatter.
We stumble over each other
searching for shelter—
for safety—
from the wrath.
Let this not be
the last sound we hear!
Let this not be
what our ears hold fast
as we go up into the winds.
Rather,
let it be a whisper.
Let it be the quiet hush
of a warm breeze
at the end of the sweetest day.
Let it be the gentle
thud
of our pulsing life
gasping in our ears.
Poems copyright (c) 2009 by Jamie Parsley
