Winds
I wonder how it would feel
if the wind were stirring my branches?
Free
Or tied down by roots?
Would I envy the birds?
When I was a sapling, life uncertain,
I feared the wind
It made my world tremble:
and my roots stir,
gripping earth.
Now, when it moves, memory wakes
I sense an old, old friend.
Sometimes, in the spring,
warm wind rushes by
Embraces, calls to me
And sap stirs down to the tips of my roots.
Sometimes, in the fall,
Cold wind kisses me
And I sigh
and let my clothing fall.
Summer is still
Heat’s ripples bend the air
When wind comes, it’s violent
With rain, it slakes the forest’s thirst.
Icy wind, winter wind, is
Awake when the world sleeps;
Stirred by dreams,
I creak and groan
Until it covers me
in silent snow.
by Samuel Diener, English ‘15
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