Watching the clock. Looking outside at the clouds growing dark. Eyeing the clock again; quarter ’til two. The blonde on the television says it’ll be coming before six o’clock. Almost black outside. Leaves are shaking.

Waiting on the storm, I find myself at peace. It’s been a good run. Friends, lovers, adventures back and forth ‘cross America. Countless jobs, always hanging on by the skin of my teeth. As long as there was a dollar in my pocket. A poet, a pauper.

This is tornado time. A frame of time given me to sort things out. To prepare. And I sit and wait in meditation. Wanting it all to end.

“I’m ready my Lord,” Leonard Cohen. From the song, “You want it darker.”