Poem: Earliest Recollections (Lansing, MI, 1973 with tornado)

Lansing Michigan,
1973
eating macaroni & cheese
in a damp basement
while adults whispered
windows shivered
radio crackled
and i wondered why the tornado was coming

and then my memory began

Note:

this is brother Bob’s (straight ahead) birthday March 1973 so i (front right) was 2.5 years old / for years i recalled this photo somehow and then going through my dear late Mom’s slides, found this and *knew it* instantly / that screened in porch, the sun, and everything.

Aside: this memory was described elsewhere in a riff…

“A brief stint in Lansing Michigan is where I remember my first thoughts, hunkered in the basement easting macaroni and cheese during a tornado, sitting in a big screened-in porch eating birthday cake with my glasses on.”