Derecho, a word
I’d never heard
though I’ve lived
fifty years and more

Whose devastation
left this nation
of Missouri
far more poor

tearing trees up from their roots
splitting ancient oaks in two
throwing hundred-year-old timber
as if it newly grew

Derecho rent the heavens
with power I’d never seen
destroying all before it
except the sons of men

for a mighty hand withheld it
from attacking wife or son
so let us all be thankful
and bless the Holy One.**

*”Derechos are elongated, straight-lined windstorms that often have bands of rapidly moving thunderstorms associated with it. These little-known atmospheric phenomena often stretch for hundred of miles and cause multiple tornadoes. Meteorologists usually issue a severe thunderstorm watch when they see an approaching derecho.” (From Science Daily)

** To my knowledge no one was killed by the derecho that hit southern Missouri, where I live, on May 8, 2009, yet the destruction it wrought to the land for hundreds of miles around exceeds by a thousand-fold the destruction of any storm I have ever witnessed.  I saw hundreds, perhaps thousands, of massive trees snapped in half and wholly uprooted from the ground.  Yet, I saw barely any damage to the human dwellings just next to the downed trees.  I believe that this derecho was a wake-up call for all of us to repent of our sins and seek the only God who can save us.  The signs of the times clearly show us that we live in the very last of the last days.