The Wind

when i was young i hated the wind

; fussing with my plans—perfectly curated,

primmed into a sort of logic model, and now,

wrinkled, wrecked, by that old westerly.

by the time i die, i shall

loosen my grip, embrace the wind back

through its grandmother arms,

and love the wind, as i know it does me,

I thought.

In my middle age, my frustration had not subsided,

for the wind would swirl around my thinning head

of hair, revealing my receding youth, my plans

all the more rushed now, a growing list of topical

interests, a flow of ideas as constant as,

you guessed it, the atmospheric force transport

-ing layers of snow in the path of my friends, sometimes

swallowing them up, stealing their last breath, or rather

, expediting.

as old age comes, and it will, i still look

forward to the moment, perhaps the only one,

when i give up. when i see the wind

for what it was: potential breaths of a bear, butterfly,

tree or me, moving to where there is more space

—who could blame it—a body standing in the way.