© 2013 by the poets

Serendipity has resulted in one of most interesting cooperative poems to date! One or two shifts in position, a couple of changes in punctuation! We especially love the wild nature of this poem—the wind has tossed geography and time to the heavens.

Thank you all for sending in your couplets. Mouse over to see the name of each contributor, or scroll down to see them all listed at once.

Ursula and Marianne and Suzanne wish you a most loving and generous year to come.

 

I Hear the Wind Waiting

Thoughts, tousled by the wind and tossed out of reach
blown away to catch on cedar rail fences and hedgerows long abandoned

signposts of past years
some turned around by the wind.

There are those who listen, see it, feel extrasensory gusts
of prairie/mountain/ocean/tree-ness. Earth's ruffled cape: alive.

Ruach, the Hebrew word for a whirly wind.
Ruach, the Hebrew word for a twirly spirit

whose warm breath dares caress my neck
winnowed through summertime's longing.

Dust, lust and miracles the wind brings
and incites my breath

pulling out purse's birthday receipts
pushing into backyard childhood swings

sheets tugged willy-nilly from the line
flown, blown, swished, into the apple tree.

I longed for it to float, gust, howl back to me–
your perfume, a note, your last missive

a quickening, a pulse, a rest
between each breathing – is and gone.

There is a silence to the wind that breaks my heart,
its sadness blows down streets, settles on evening's grace.

Held by the wind
migrating raptors begin the long glide

wind steals seed thoughts from my mouth.
I bend like a dry stalk, untranslated.

On hot days in prairie summers the wind stirs
a cauldron of dust, a vortex blackens the sky.

Howling from the coast a logger rips limbs off
Douglas fir, Garry oak, and old-growth cedar

the cedars swirl and dance, as skinny branches rub
their squeaky sing-song tunes to winter's grey sky.

Lung wind invasion sits on its haunches
under feather and skin

we are the battered heart of a hummingbird, shaped
as a cornice of snow on the riddled stump.

A blind wind blows holes in an ebony sky
stars escape clear blue from the heavens

gusts from the blacksmith's bellows burst us alive,
renewed, we push forward, ignited we glow.

Whitecaps from the west rush past the dock
no canoe goes out today.

Another squall
my walking stick a flute.

All night the wind runs its fingers through the hair of
your sorrow. Whispers fables in your ears.

Sudden gust from the north—wind chimes
in the bare birch, singing in the night.

Marry your lungs and air, let steel become
a sigh, be like a leafy breeze, breathe.

Gale force life sweeps toward shore.
Short breath of mouth to mouth relief

the northwest wind rides roughshod on the bay–
a bareback gallop over bucking waves.

Crystal coating weighs on willow tree branches,
ice crackles as westerlies bend white birches

the hustler, the imp, the bitter dowager all
prick faux promise this stubborn sac of inertia.

Blow the sounds between our lips, locks of hair on end,
the bumps on the tanned skin of her arms. In, she breathes

strong wind from the south: I put on my jacket, step into the garden
to fasten the roses, yet stand and listen to the hum of the sky.

Wind frisks the cedars, nips the rusted foliage.
The air's orange – tiny gloves caught on the updraft.

Who has seen the wind, the wind in the willows
gone with the wind, the wind that howls alone

it rattles in my ears, it shakes me to my bones–
I used to love the wind, my wild, wicked friend.

I try and try to remember things
that happened long before my birth

wind hollering through the cracks of time
memories blown wildly to and fro–

I hear the wind waiting, the slow waves returning,
the darkness unfolding.

__________________

Contributors:

Allan Brown | Barbara Black | Bonnie Nish | Cat Majors | Christina Shah | Cornelia Hoogland | Daniela Elza | Dorothee Lang | Dvora Levin | Gwynneth Heaton | Heather Cardin | Heidi Greco | Jane Mellor | Janet Kvammen | Janice Retterath | Jeannine Pitas | Joanna M. Weston | kjmunro | Kim Clark | Leanne McIntosh | Leona gallant | Linda Crosfield | Lindsay Glauser Kwan | Margaret Doyle | Marina Blokker | Marion Beck | Marvyne Jenoff | Mary Duffy | Mary Meriam | Naomi Beth Wakan | Pasquale Verdicchio | Pat Smekal | Patricia A. McGoldrick | Patrick M. Pilarski | Shelley Tracey | Tyler Gabrysh | Wilda Kruize