Talking About the Wind

I cannot think now about politics or poverty or melting ice sheets at the poles nor about water tables dropping or rivers drying up before they reach the sea. I cannot talk about earthquakes or mud slides, oil spills or mountaintop removal, war or evasive peace. There are, I imagine, things to think, things to say, but I find that I go there now.

I prefer to think about the wind outside the house tonite.

The still-leafless pecans creaked and swayed, as graveyard spirits might have appeared in a black-and-white movie you might have watched as a child. A signpost shook and its metal creaked as it shook back and forth, as in a full-color movie I remember. The new spring leaves of the oaks and elms and even the walnut tree on the side of our house rushed and rustled in the gusting wind.

The dog who was with me, or rather I with him, pulled on the leash and sniffed on one side of the sidewalk and then the other, oblivious to the creaking and swaying and blowing all about us, oblivious to the fact that there are those other things that I just cannot bring myself to think about. He was the better for that, and so, I suppose, would we be.

So let's just leave it at that.

9:10:11 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []