Born in a cosmic, ancient time unknown—
Neither with a beginning nor with end,
Roving the globe with no destination,
Scaled from gales to zephyrs—exists the wind.
Never truly stilled. Wind wafts through tall grass,
Strokes a woodpecker’s pileated back,
Eddies, whirls like an Istanbul dervish,
Then rushes to autumn’s gold tamarack.
Along a purling stream it courses.
Unconquerable, the wind keeps her head,
Dashing over the solemn pine forest,
Toward the boreal Arctic’s stone swept shore.
Then out! Out over the cold raging sea,
Of black waves, fractured pack ice, and white spume—
Out amid lightning’s ribbonlike white wires,
Where auroras blaze in electric bloom.
On capricious currents come chance and change.
Historic, progressive, shaping wild rain—
On wind ride voyagers, eagles, and hopes:
Hopes to be fulfilled, hopes that are in vain.
