The Wrath of a Mad Woman
	
Word of her impending arrival
spread ahead of her for days;
the look of rage in her eyes 
bred fear for miles around
— a woman scorned 
for no apparent reason
other than that the wind blew
in the wrong direction that day.

A mad woman
whose anger rumbled through the air
like thunder as she cried;
whose tears drenched her
and all around her;
whose unfathomable wrath 
became the misfortune of those
who stood in her path.

She cared not 
where she cast her destruction
as she swirled in a dizzying foray,
blindly sweeping onward,
crazed and merciless,
her thunderous cries replaced
by weeping left in her wake
leaving the weak and broken
to pick up the pieces she left behind. 

And in the floods of her tears
she left the seeds of anarchy
growing before the eyes of the innocent,
feeding on fear and confusion
and spreading like a rampant weed,
like a scene from a bad low-budget movie
creeping off the screen
in a theatre with no escape.

If she wanted attention,
she got it.
If she wanted infamy
she got that too. 
Her name will never drip
from the tongues of the living
without a tear for the dead.

september 2005
Janet Reid





Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, Louisiana 
and southern Mississippi August 29, 2005