The wind that blew all night

Painting by Krzyżanowski

• 

The wind that blew all night has stripped the leaves
and ripped the ivy from the wall;
its hot breath bringing summer from the south
has faltered, anger in its mouth.
Wild storms will come, I hear the urgent call
of songbirds sheltered by the wall,
and nothing battles in the higher air,
no wings are crumpled, tossed aside like chaff,
the magpie doesn’t leave her swaying nest,
a feathered anchor for her fledgling brood.
I hear alarm in every leafy sigh
and sough of branches, heavy with new leaf,
in every flower head with petaled crown
that fragile, bows, so soon to come to grief.

Autan

Wind has blown the sun away
and strung plastic pigeon-scarers
from the boughs of unleafed trees.

First white blossom dims
in this wild light of no sky no cloud
an opalescent pall
dull as a sand-silted pearl.

gogyohka: yes, it’s still raining

 

birds

in the claws of the wind

torn from sky perches

wings bent to another course

slice through the rain

Spring wind

Wind winds through cracks and crannies, picking at

the insulation around the frames of window and door,

 

poking frigid fingers into spine and soup, chilling hot

food with a frozen flap of the hand. Wind whines in

 

the chimney, rattling doors to get in, riffling the pages

of an open book, rustling like dead leaves or flame-

 

crackle in the stove. Wind wins the battle with defences,

teasing the cracked plaster apart to whisper with thin lips,

 

This is the way of spring, the bright promises made, the

singing and the shooting, the sharp cut and thrust of birth.

Wind gogyohka

 

wind pours

a cascade

from the ocean sky

sweeping leaves birds and branches

in its flood.

The hand that shakes

A butterfly cinquain that doesn’t quite fit the remit for Colleen’s challenge as I have only used a synonym for one of the words.

 

The hand

that shakes the trees

is the wind’s, the voice that

calls in the night and stirs your dreams.

Listen

to its wild song woven with threads

of moon silver and the

gentle questions

of owls.

Blue wind

This wind full of sheets of rain

pounds the house

as waves pound a cliff face,

and the air fills with the red roar of sea horses,

bucking blue and green as the deeps,

always too elusive to catch

in these sodden meadows

even with the eye of longing.

November

days of wind and lashing boughs

rain slanting from shifting sky

colour of winter half-dark

filling the ditches with running cold

where frost needles will grow

 

light the stove

and listen to the flames

singing of old tree days

and green springs

filled with bird-flutter

 

chimney-wind echoes hollow

among the bricks

tree-wind rattles rain from wet boughs

and the solemn tweeting

of chaffinches

Fierce summer

I wrote this gogyohka this morning and discovered that Paul Miltaru had posted a photograph to accompany it. Thank you, Paul for letting me borrow it.

the wind blows hot and fierce

bringing only dry-leaf rain

to this parched land

fissures gape—listen

you can hear the earth gasp

Wind-rushy

I’ve been working on this poem for a few days. Seems like a good moment to post it. For the NaPoWriMo pastoral prompt.

We walk in the dark of the wind-rushy trees,

listening to their wind-rushy voices,

solemn and wise and old as the earth,

silencing birdsong and furtive rustlings

from woods, hedges, field edges

and sleeping gardens.

Hands touch, but can they hold it back,

the something, pale blue and shimmering,

that seemed to fade in the dusk?

Wind rushes, rolling the perfume of lilac along the lane,

playing the woodwind of rose and oriole,

bowling garlic flower notes against the dark.

Wind ruffles flowerheads with gentle hand,

my face, sharper, imperious—listen, feel—

then suddenly the stream,

banked in heavy scents of wet earth,

edged in elm and elder,

alder and willow boughs sweeping low,

calls in the pure ringing voice

of spring water running

and the notes, a seamless weave,

leave no space for sadness.