Practice Prompt – Tornado tearing through a small town
In the cradle of the valley, where the sun once shone,
Where cornfields whispered softly, and the church bells groaned,
A whisper stirs the air, no more than death’s own breath,
A prayer to silence life, a promise now of death.
The sky rips wide, a bruise of black, a stain of night,
And in the shadowed stillness, something curls in fright.
The trees stand mute, their limbs are locked in frozen dread,
As trembling earth beats out a sound, and sky begins to spread.
Golden torrents flood the streets, then slowly fade away
As winds begin to twist and whip causing trees to sway.
Then comes the scream, a guttural, harsh, and grating wail,
A shape of fury rising high, a gray and ghastly trail.
It spins with rage, an unseen beast, born of the storm,
A beast that tears at reason’s skin and rips it from its form.
It twists through fields of gold, a serpent cold as ice,
It eats the ground, devours roots, never thinking twice.
It tears through homes, it rends the earth,
And shreds the remnants of their worth.
The night is born where trust once lay,
The town is swallowed by decay.
Once warm with life, the streets now weep,
Their houses torn, while Pale Death reaps.
The wind’s cruel jaws rip through the sky,
Families ground to dust and torn awry.
The steeple that once called to grace,
Now lies in ruin, lost in place.
No prayer can still the storm’s sharp cry,
No hands can stop the wind’s dark sigh.
A doll is caught, a single stare,
A fleeting hope now choked in air.
The fields that bloomed with joy and mirth,
Now sink in graves that swallow earth.
The town is choked, it cannot breathe,
Its veins are dry, its pulse deceased.
The roads, once pulsing, twist and break,
As ghosts in winds of dust awake.
The names they call are lost, erased,
As shattered glass falls from its place.
And when the storm has finally passed,
The silence falls, the town’s outcast.
The wind, it turns, but in its wake,
The ruins of lives it did forsake.
Now only whispers, screams, and dust,
Are all that linger, robbed of trust.
A world so proud, so small, so bright,
Now crushed beneath the fury’s might.
If you should wander here, beware,
You’ll feel the chill that fills the air.
A memory that grasps at the soul,
A loss that time cannot control.
The twister lives, and when it flies,
None are safe from its deep cries.