Tornado on the Hillside

As it was coming over the hill-dad saw the tornado coming 

he had been by the back door all evening looking

At the top of the hill, he saw it was dropping down 

he’d been watching the clouds , When I saw his frown

 He knew it was close he could see the trees sway

The temperature dropped quickly in a strange way

Round up all the kids and get them across the street

To the Creekmore’s cellar is where we would all go to meet

Both families met there it was the usual place just across the road

It had rained and we were standing on boards across the water below

it was dark we just had a lantern there wasn’t much air in the place

We were as close as sardines in a tin can standing face to face

When the wind howled I heard my mom started counting 

as she did we said our name our fear began mounting

We all said our names as mom went down the row

Starting with Teddy down to me and and Robin then Joel should go

Mom got down to Robin and she said her name

we waited for Joel to speak up but nothing ever came

mom said to do it again so we all said our names

we got to brother Joel but it was still the same

 we all knew at that moment there was nothing mom could do 

he’s been left at the house we silently waited for it to be through

When it was over we saw the barn was missing 

As our mama ran to the house we were all wishing

Joel had been outside in the back playing when we left the house

We followed mama in the door we were quiet as a mouse

A sigh of relief filled the air

When we saw brother Joel lying there

Sound asleep 💤 

without making a peep

tornadoes on our hillside

made us always run and hide

• Brother Joel slept through a tornado at one time we didn’t mean to leave him there we thought that we had all the kids rounded up and put into the cellar

across the street at the Creekmore,s but we didn’t

We should’ve known mama always counted heads 123 456-789-10,11 12,13 and 14 and she did it over and over till she got the right number one of us was always doing something she didn’t usually get a 14 on the first count