THE STORM

The day was calm, a smell of autumn was there.
The sky was a bit hazy,  and the sun lacked its glare.  
George and his bro trotted off to school.
The breeze wrinkled the skin of the tidal pool.

Folks went to work.  Some picked up their mail.
The breeze soon changed into a harsh growing gale.
By two in the afternoon it became an express
delivering considerable fear and distress!

Fierce winds and high tides accosted the shore.
Some of its victims were gone; breathing no more.
George and his brother arrived home  unaware
that the road behind them had been swept bare.

The house groaned and creaked thru the night.
Power lines came down.  No one had light.
When daylight arrived, the wind and rain were still strong.
Everyone expected this day would be long.

Before nightfall, the storm clouds moved on.
The family decided to go outside on the lawn.
The view that they saw was a landscape stripped clean.
The trees and houses weren't where they'd been seen.

Their house was all that was left; all else had gone away.
In its place, a sea of sand had come to bury and stay.
The family packed what they could carry and left;
turned and looked one last time at their home, bereft.