WIND-BLOWN

A breeze kisses the slow indolence of water, stirs a silver-blue reflected sky;
whispers magic to the hornbeam, sets it trembling, turns green to white;
slithers through sunburnt grasses which creak and grumble at its passing.
Below trees, a kinder, greener grass soughs like silken dresses to its touch.
Bulrushes, impervious to blandishments, stand unmoved at the margins
of the lake. Undeterred, the wind moves on, caresses small insects

industrious in purple heads of long-dead blooms; lends a helping hand
to spiderlings, carries them into invisibility among the clouds. It flirts
with forget-me-nots at the water’s edge; offers me scent of new-mown hay,
songs of unseen cows and sheep, absolute confirmation of my loneliness.
Fish jump, sink, jump again; inscribe their passing on the lake. Swallows
flee to foreign shores. Dragonflies spark rainbows in their search for love.

A whole world with purpose, full of motion, passing me by. I am nothing.
I lie alone in shadows, wrapped in birdsong and hunger; suck comfort
from crimson clover, early goose grass; fantasize on what might have been.
I people the sky with my imagination, exuberant strangers with my face,
unconstrained, dynamic; hopeful and confident; wind-blown. I pin them
against the sky in perpetuity. Two dancers, the son and daughter I never had.