The Wind Is Coming

I walked out of the store today into the fierce wind of a coming storm. I love these storms and these winds because they remind me of the beautiful, crazy, wild, and awesome thunderstorms of Minnesota summers. Hot afternoons broken by the relief of cool wind and rain, the smell of hot, wet asphalt, and the wild displays of lightening and ear-splitting thunder. They remind me of my childhood.

When the wind hit me this afternoon it brought to mind a poem I wrote many years ago which still remains a personal favorite:

The die is cast, the dead are born
Call out to the holy
The winds are
returning.

And I- I lie dead in a field of daisies
Kissing the sky
with an open mouth.
Swear love on the clouds as they pass the world by.
And I- I lie dead in the sky.

Wind, it brings change, destruction, devastation, renewal, it pushes the clouds, it moves the earth. When spring comes the wind churns the lakes to bring life back to the water.

In the movie Chocolat the wind keeps the protagonist moving from place to place like a vagabond.

The winds return, and I move. The wind and the storms remind me of home, of childhood, of that supreme peace that one remembers of days growing up. I will miss the miraculous thunderstorms of summer, I will miss the smell of fresh cut grass on saturday mornings and the purring of lawnmowers.

But thankfully I get to enjoy now: the beautiful afternoons of a flower-filled spring. And yes, the wind that comes before the afternoon thunderstorms and the sweet smell of hot wet asphalt.

The winds are returning and I will spread my wings and fly.