Highways and Byways: Radar Love

By Maik Strosahl

Sometimes I wonder
at the storms that hit
without warning.

Sometimes,
popcorn rises from
green fields,
invisible to the Doppler,
building into a shelf,
unpredicted,
missed by the
10 o’clock report,
weather on the 6’s,
the farmer at the grocery
who smells tempests brewing.

Sometimes in the darkness
I feel a disturbance,
waking,
can see her rising soon
and know she is
just a brief shower away
from storming off,
tearing through with
high winds,
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio…

while I stay behind,
still wondering
what this is,
what that was,
what she took with her,
left in a twister’s wake—

my boards broken,
my stuffings scattered
across rows
of newly planted beans.

Copyright © 2023 by Michael E. (Maik) Strosahl Maik was born and raised in Moline, Illinois, and has written poetry since youth. After moving to Indiana and daring to participate in a poetry reading, he joined its poetry society and began his search for the state’s local groups, occasionally starting groups in communities where he found none. In 2018, he relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, and in July 2023 returned to his roots in the Quad Cities, where he continues to search for kindred spirits to inspire and draw energy from.