Poetry and Painting “The Tempest”

This painting was from an image of a storm in Botswana and the poem was inspired by a story my father told me about a little family cemetery in Shawnee Mound, Missouri.  He mentioned the little marker of a baby Fleming and the mystery surrounding this unknown child.  I should write a poem about it.  Maybe another day I will.  The painting is a watercolor and I tried to capture the ominous movement of the approaching storm.  I hope you like it.18×24 watercolor on  140lb arches rough.

The Tempest

Change coming

Summer runs away

Tomorrow

Will be cold

Behind these clouds a tempest

Fierce north winds leaves blow

After fighting through acres of waist high, razor sharp grass searching, and finding an old family cemetery, the weather changed with an apocalyptic fury. One minute it was clear and warm and the next the temperature dropped 20 degrees and gale force winds blew. I wasn’t prepared for this nasty weather. I expected this adventure to be a simple hour over and back. I was ready for a little difficulty; I had been told that the headstones of the family plot would be hard to find. They were in an old cemetery somewhere in a dense overgrown field and were surrounded by a rusted metal fence in the shade of a cottonwood tree. With time to kill in Western Missouri, spending an afternoon finding the gravestones seemed fun and only slightly demanding. I did find the graves; including one that simply read, “baby Fleming” a story for later. I made tracings of the inscriptions, and then the wrath of God commenced. I had not noticed the storm that raced in from the west, cold winds blew and torrential rains fell. Forced to flee the small cemetery, I ran full speed, risking what was left of my bare skin, and headed towards a stand of pines and slim cover. I had to get out of the weather. My short sleeved shirt and lightweight pants offered no real protection from the buffeting by the wind and rain, or the lashing from the sharp switch grass. I was stunned how fast rain and wind chill could drop the body temperature, hypothermia was a concern. Under the trees, I shivered and waited out the 4^th movement of Beethoven’s 6^th Symphony. After a miserable hour spent freezing, under the protection of a dense pine and tucked into thick underbrush, the weather broke and I headed to my car and a heater that I cranked up full force.

The morning

A frigid drop, huge gusts

Enough to stop

My progress

Leaning hard, determined strides

No rest awaits me