Wind Whispers

When I was eight I first heard
whispering through trees
and I learned its language.
The wind is old
ancient before day was born,
howling wrath at all slimy things
the sea conceived,
swaying new blossoms to flowers.

Barefoot, half-naked,
I owned the country side,
Johnson grass fields,
green hollows meandering
through pastured hills
succored by a red-rock stream,
Persimmon saplings
supple
swinging my weight beneath a cumulous sky
thunderheads so huge
evanescent forms surge to shape
then trip away.

On a bed of moss
beneath a spreading elm I laid
mesmerized by bird songs skipping
on the breeze:
Your father’s face you recognize
but cannot see.
Your mother’s life screams of eternity
cloistered by fear
her rotting flesh supplicating
through the crevices of your dreams.
Your world is full of strangers,
shadows without substance.
In solitude
come to me
wide as waving prairies grazed by buffalo,
habitat of furry critters burrowing earth.
If you listen with your heart
I will whisper ancient truth.