Editor’s Note: Along with her poem and photographs below, Meryl Joseph sent the following explication: “Sending you a poem I wrote after the tornado on Memorial Day, May 29, 1995 … It’s now 22 years since the devastation…Just wanted to share…as this is a time of deep reflection, and great challenge… it helps to be reminded that change is constant, and that things are always evolving. From devastation to lush landscape, let’s pray for that cycle to resolve itself … soon.
In Memoriam
I was a tree
Until my brother Wind visited with his rage,
Now my skin is screaming,
My cover blown, I have no place to hide.
Torn, split, ravaged
I feel my mysteries revealed
The darkness unshaded,
My soul exposed.
I cry out to my family –
A fearless nation standing tall
Within the phases of the moon.
But I hear nothing from them,
Only a metallic silence
And the oily scent of gunmetal.
My arms reach out to my brothers and sisters,
But they are no longer there for me.
They lie, twisted and wrenched
Pulled from their earth anchor,
Lamenting the dislocation.
They seem helpless
Their tough skin peeled and wounded
Fragile. Unprotected.
I am a tree.
I am Bosnia.
I am Chechnya
I am Ethiopia
I am Oklahoma City
Starved, scarred, abandoned.
Now I am Hecuba
I am lonely.
In the midst of summer’s arrival, I am cold.
I am humbled by my brother Wind,
His force is undeniable, unstoppable.
As I make the transition to the other side,
I am grateful to see the light
And know the magnitude of the darkness
For I have lived blind to his power,
Disconnected from the myth.
I now see my reflection
In the naked essence of truth…
I see myself.
The sun’s rays penetrate
My broken skin,
Saplings embrace my nakedness.
I will soon cross over.
In the unveiling of my surroundings
The path is clear.
Others take my remaining energy.
I too emerge, unveiled, lucid within the summer sky
I reach for my brothers and sisters.
— Meryl Joseph, June 1995
“In Memoriam” was first published in The Monterey News, June/1995
The date of the tornado was Monday, May 29, Memorial Day, 1995
Tornado photos first published in 1995 in The Berkshire Record.
