The Wind’s Longing

I had not thought before of the wind’s longing,

How it always seems in search of something lost,

Like a cloud set down on a green hill at evening

Or a letter trembling in a young woman’s hand,

Going about the world in search of this one thing,

Day after day, year after year, as ghosts are said to do;

Setting chairs cartwheeling from cafes in the street,

Tearing down powerlines, lifting up roofs,

Refusing to countenance any secret places

Where the source of its deep sorrowing might hide.

But whispering, too, the deepest secrets of its heart,

Sand blown along the pier mixed with sea-mist

Playing around the faces of summer girls

Who flick boys from their hair, lick salt from their lips;

A feather, a petal, a seagull, the spores of milkweed

Blown with their shadows gently around the earth,

All inheriting the wind’s own yearning,

All longing, but never quite able to find

This one thing, lost at the wind’s beginning.

I had not felt the wind’s longing until today.