Birth of a Storm

    A field of wheat stretches like an ocean into the distance.  The
stalks' kerneled crowns drink the sun, bristles shivering as the sky's
outbreath passes west to east.  Afternoon sunshine bathes the sea of
grain.  The amber glow loses texture upon a horizon boiling with clouds.
A black mountain wheels through the sky.  Cloud limbs sprout, then lengthen
as the storm rotates, slowly at its furrowed edge, dizzily at its core.  
Gusts swoop from the sky, disturb the field's calm with crests and troughs.
The wheat hisses, stalks sighing across others.  Humid air sweetens with
pollen, then sours with ozone as jagged tongues fork and lick the horizon. 
Muffled rumbles shake the ground.  The mountain's base flattens, black
surface losing definition through a veil of rainfall.  The storm passes
overhead.  Lightning tears the sky, scorches earth's bounty, pocks the field
with black.  Rain bursts forth and soaks the field.  Gusts give way to an
unending roar, wheat stalks ascending.  Hail stones, white and congealed from
glistening lumps, ricochet from the earth.  An eruption of brown thunder, a
quarter mile across, litters the sky with stones and soil.  The field
ruptures, pours against gravity's tide into the upwelling funnel.  A hole
opens within the clouds, exposes clear sky.  Suction condenses air into mist,
gray and spinning a tortuous path into the heights.  A twister is born,
churning, shocking the ground with electricity.  Winds raze the field,
offer wheat to heaven.