Pulled this out of a drawer yesterday…

Ma was rocking Jonas on the porch when the duster came though,
Rattling this town where all the rain we’d got was a half-scorched dew
For weeks, for months. I can’t remember. Nothin’ but hot, searing wind.
And mocking wisp of cloud—‘til this—colossal, end-of-the-world, hellfire whirling round,
Black-hearted beast, full of fury and sound,
Wind that makes the house shake—
What is this awful black nightmare that leaves grit in its wake?
We don’t know what to call it.
 
But the newspapers do.
The next morning they tell us that dread cloud of dirt was a black blizzard.
A week later they tell us we’d had another one.
Don’t need a story in the paper to know—look around.
See the dunes where this plain was once level ground.
See the brown where once it was green with rye, gold with wheat.
Feel the dust all over you from hair to feet.
Don’t need a paper to tell me what I seen. I remember when it used to be green.
 
Ma was cooking supper on the stove when the duster came through.
By now we forgot to panic—this was blizzard number forty-two.
It got real dark, Jonas started breathing all quick and shallow like he’s ‘bout to cry.
But he can’t—the air’s so thick, eyes so dry.
I wrap a towel ‘round his face and pray it keeps the dust from his lungs,
Remember that the laundry’s out hung—
Probably getting ripped to shreds—we’ll have to turn our rags into rags.
 
Jonas coughs. Ma sighs. And I…close my eyes.
Close out the stinging grains.
Close out the hunger pangs.
Close out the look on Ma’s face when the man came from the bank
And our hearts sank ‘cause we have nowhere to go.
Eight years on this land and nothin’ to show.
Ma was rocking Jonas on the porch when the duster came through.