Chances
Storm chasers are in the county
talking to our sheriff about conditions,
and the spike in heat, too steep
for April, makes us fill water buckets
and remind each other where to find
the headlamps. We quickly cast
more seed out ahead of the rain, pale
coneflower, compass plant, blazing star,
ground plum, locoweed. The porcupine grass
with its corkscrew—a way to burrow
its own seed in—we spear into the soil.
The wild asparagus isn’t up yet,
but we harvest young horseradish
and nettles for our salad, dress it with balsamic
pear, and feast on cream sauce with last year’s
local mushrooms and wild game, over noodles.
The coffee is ground for morning, because
without power we can still heat water
but can’t run the grinder. We’ve sent our stacks
of paper to the tax man, an accounting
of what we’ve gathered, and there’s not much left
of the sacks and buckets of prairie seed
that accompanied us all winter, the restoration
acres mostly planted. The gust front
has now come, rain is striking the windows,
and my father’s research on squall lines
has been mentioned. The light is yellow
as sunflower. It’s time to deal the cards.
KELLY MADIGAN is a poet and essayist living in the Loess Hills of western Iowa. Her collection of poetry, The Edge of Known Things, was published by SFASU press. Read more.