Like the West Wind
They blow when they blow, there is no why, they just do
Sometimes their caress is warm and fragrant, sometimes it is cold
and stinging
Sometimes their strength is such that it can pick you up and carry
you
giggling and laughing, as you fly free as a bird!
Sometimes their strength is such that it pounds you into the ground
relentlessly,
leaving you scrambling for shelter as you scream into the wind
for it to stop.
Sometimes it blows with a pleasing symmetry, gracefully scything
through the wheat fields, rippling
them like a gentle wave.
Sometimes it blows like a circular maelstrom, a vast hurricane,
splintering people and families into a
million shards of despair.
Sometimes it goes away for a long time, long enough so that we
think it is safe to emerge from our
shelters to rebuild the scattered debris of our lives. Then
out of nowhere,
The funnel clouds appear, greenish-black over a flat Kansas plain,
swooping down
And menacing us as we drop everything and run into the root cellar.
Sometimes the wind is our enemy, sometimes it is our friend.
But it is always there, whispering softly at times, a gale-force
gnashing, at others.
It has been here before us and it will be here after we are gone.
All we can do is construct our towers as a bulwark to protect what
we hold dear.
And look over the ramparts, waiting for the west wind, waiting...
John E. Daley, 1996