Wind Whispers: A Poem of Movement

Poetry is a close friend. Its speakers tell me a secret or an inside joke that I will only understand if I scoot just that inch closer to their mouths. And when I allow my arms to open, I can feel poetry crawl into my lap for the warmth. I know that poetry would do the same for me, when next I need to be the warmth seeker.

This is my attempt to portray how much this feeling means to me.

Click on the video capsule below to read along with me! =)

I have
a
friend
who swoops in

He scatters frowns and tears from
people with fears of falling
into blackened pits

He changes cries into bird fights
and teasing words of dulled
prickers and love bites.

He lifts up limbs of wooden grace
when the trunks who bear them forget
how to carry the pressure--
the memories
of their once truer heights.

He slides past 'nana peels
with slimy ears and rotten cores
who sit,
fomenting in pools
on a bully's tongue
and he laughs
at the corner's throne.

He snatches bitch! and loser!
and loop-dee-loops
the slurs out of harm's way.

And I walk on unaware.

And then he settles
drops
sits
on a trunk once 60 feet longer
now swirling
'round the edge
of a jagged
wooden throne of stools
and settles
once more
on a
spongey
lid.

I have a friend
who listens
and answers
in long whirling whines
and low fog horn breaths.

He always knows when
your skirt is free
to pull and lift
and

wait. He's stopped listening.

When it whirls and twirls then stops among the chipmunks and squirrels,
that's when I know he's playing hide and seek.

Sometimes I follow
listen
beckon him to stick around for dinner.

But mostly I let him be.

And when he thinks
I'm not listening,
he sneaks up behind me,
surfacing from under piles of leaves,
crashing upon the shore of my back porch
to tickle split ends and whisper, "It's okay."

-FIN-