we staggered out of our caves of dust
into the sunlight,
turning our faces to the big blue sky.
On the second clear day
we believed
the worst was over at last.
We flocked outside,
traded in town,
going to stores and coming out
only to find the air still clear
and gentle,
grateful for each easy breath.
On the third clear day
summer came in April
and the churches opened their arms to all comers
and all comers came.
After church,
folks headed for
picnics,
car trips. No one could stay inside.
My father and I argued about the funeral
of Grandma Lucas,
But we ended up going anyway,
driving down the road in a procession to Texhoma.
Six miles out of town the air turned cold,
birds beat their wings
everywhere you looked,
whole flocks
dropping out of the sky,
crowding on fence posts.
I was sulking in the truck beside my father
when
heaven’s shadow crept across the plains,
a black cloud,
big and silent as Montana,
boiling on the horizon and
barreling toward us.
More birds tumbled from the sky
frantically keeping ahead of the dust.
We watched as the storm swallowed the light.
The sky turned from blue
to black,
night descended in an instant
and the dust was on us.
The wind screamed.
The blowing dirt ran
I couldn’t see the brim of my hat
as we plunged from the truck,
fleeing.
The dust swarmed
like it had never swarmed before.
My father groped for my hand,
pulled me away from the truck.
We ran,
a blind pitching toward the shelter of a small house,
almost invisible,
our hands tight together,
running toward the ghostly door,
pounding on it with desperation.
A woman opened her home to us,
all of us,
not just me and my father,
but the entire funeral procession,
and one after another,
we tumbled inside, gasping,
our lungs burning for want of air.
All the lamps were lit against the dark,
the house dazed by dust,
gazed weakly out.
The walls shook in the howling wind.
We helped tack up sheets on the windows and doors
to keep the dust down.
Cars and trucks
unable to go on,
their ignitions shorted out by the static electricity,
opened up and let out more passengers,
who stumbled for shelter.
One family came in
clutched together,
their pa, divining the path
with a long wooden rod.
If it hadn’t been for the company,
this storm would have broken us
completely,
broken us more thoroughly than
the plow had broken the Oklahoma sod,
more thoroughly than my burns
had broken the ease of my hands.
But for the sake of the crowd,
and the hospitality of the home that sheltered us,
we held on
and waited,
sitting or standing, breathing through wet cloths
as the fog of dust filled the room
and settled slowly over us.
some went on to bury Grandma Lucas,
but my father and I,
we cleaned the thick layer of grime
off the truck,
pulled out of the procession and headed on home,
creeping slowly along the dust-mounded road.
When we got back,
we found the barn half covered in dunes,
I couldn’t tell which rise of dust was Ma and
Franklin’s grave.
The front door hung open,
blown in by the wind.
Dust lay two feet deep in ripply waves
across the parlor floor,
dust blanketed the cookstove,
the icebox,
the kitchen chairs,
everything deep in dust.
And the piano …
buried in dust.
While I started to shovel,
my father went out to the barn.
He came back, and when I asked, he said
the animals
weren’t good,
and the tractor was dusted out,
and I said, “It’s a wonder
the truck got us home.”
I should have held my tongue.
When he tried starting the truck again,
it wouldn’t turn over.
April 1935