The Wind Came Again
The wind came again, tore around the corners of the house. Last night it wept and yelled, wanted attention. I went outside and it grabbed my hair, held it up toward the moon, said to the clouds, "Here I am. I'll hold you in my hands and carry you across the sky." The wind is such a braggart. He's like you. Dramatic, selfish, making a big deal out of everything he touches. He shakes the trees and makes the leaves whisper their secrets into the night. The last night I saw you, you acted like the wind, shuffling from one mask to another, hiding as usual behind a lack of speech. You want everything to acknowledge your presence, too. But you just speak in little gusts of hot air, acting as though they really are truths that you believe. Nope, they are simply whooshes and the blustering of pomposity. Little gusts of air, or big gusts, meaningless declarations of love, hitting the sides of buildings, blowing up dust storms, pulling sand up off of the beaches, pretending to know the passions of waves. Well, the wind is back. Today it's blowing me around like a big bully. It's pushing on the backs of people as they walk, wanting to hurry them along. There's no reason for it, either. It's just a power trip. The wind, like you, wants to push everything around. Its anger, too, is unfounded. The squirrels haven't done anything to it, the birds don't deserve to be whipped around so, poor things clinging to branches just to save themselves from being hurled to the ground. The wind isn't fair. It's empty. It's like you. A big liar that wants to dominate the landscape and the way air is, pretend that it's the only game in town.
Copyright (c) Velene Campbell 2004. All rights reserved.
