Wind

Done with the hot air of bloviating Congressmen

and done with the winds of war, 

The wind is now out of breath that filled sailing ships

on their way to conquest and carnage

Let the ocean churn

 

for Turner’s brushstroke. Even then

there is a calm in my inland sea

for the wind that hides in the word window,

vividly unseen except as it bends the palm

 and scatters leaves like schools of fish.

                   

Wind-chill that stirs my memory

 in those squalls of yesteryear when three sweaters

 were no match for the nor’easter

  as it laid me low in the vise of the grippe.

   (no, not the grippe)

My mother knew exactly which wind to blame

fluent as she was in the glossary of winds.

She knew the dreaded draft with its cargo of maladies

from fresh air which filled our lungs and chased miasma.

Wind, you devil.

 

Wind, you saint. Wind of cross-ventilation,

river of breeze we called air-conditioning.

Wind on fire-escapes those August nights.

Wind which blew fly balls into home-runs

or stilled them in mid-flight.

 

Wind, you choreographer

giving wings to skirts and undershirts.

Chorus-line on the clothesline.

On wind’s invisible carpet dreams and sparrows

hitch a ride.

 

We see the wind in curtains sway and swoon

from bedrooms when the camera pans

signifying lovers across the room

 blowing candles out and sculpting

 cigarette smoke dancing like dervish to exhausted bliss.

 

 Gazing through the glass

 the window is a portal to unknowable wind.

 A gust of the imagined seizes me

  with this windfall of gusto

  carries me to the other side of the wind.