Greetings and Happy Monday. The summer solstice has passed but not summer, my favorite time of year. Bring it on, baby. Baseball in a field, burgers on the grill, beaches and bikinis, martinis, t-shirts and flip flops, car hops, the cool shade of a tree, music in the park, dancing in the dark, and a good book to read…which, by the way, you can catch here in the cool shade of your home every Tuesday and Thursday. It’s a mystery called THE STANDARD WEAKLY STANDARD. (A shameless plug, I know, but hey, until The New York Times catches on, this is where it’s at).
Today’s poem is a rather sad one. I first wrote this in February 2007, inspired by a ferocious wind. Typically I am not bothered by breezes, but heavy, strong, angry winds— like the kind that blows your bonnet into the passing flatbed truck, rolls your trash can down the street, and pushes your neighbor’s baby buggy (with the baby in it) across the street into the Conoco station’s parking lot—that kind of wind makes me jumpy. Anyway, from there grew the idea for how winds can take away some precious things and after that, who cares about the wind after all.
I appreciate your taking the time to read. Have a great day and week and remember…what that rock ‘n roll philospher with the gravely voice once sang: the answer is blowing in the wind.
WHAT THE WIND TOOK AWAY
by ZJ Czupor
Out where the wild wind blows
all day long...long…long
whistling and lamenting
her bittersweet song.
No urban breeze this petulant gale
she careens past prairie in a furious hail.
Past old bridges down gravel roads
memories flow by...by...by
the wind gnashes and gnaws
at a sorrowful sky.
Here we swam, bare and unafraid
I see your smile 'tho the laughter fades.
On the hill where the wild wind blows
all day long…long…long
the wind screams and taunts
how we don't belong.
Yet we climbed and entwined our flesh
becoming as one 'neath the willow tree's dress.
O'er hills of flint the wild wind blows
forever and ever more
shaping and sculpting
the old riverbed's floor.
I return to a place where the sun once shone
where our spirits rose and dreams were sown.
Down in the valley where the wild wind blows
through summer, fall, winter and spring
she eases her cry
when the meadowlark sings.
My love's buried here 'neath the willow tree
gone with my heart for all eternity.
O, let the damn wind blow
from dusk to dawn on and on
wild and tempestuous as she will
it matters no more when your love is gone.
I give leave to old fences and fields of hay
leaving with ghosts of what the wind took away.
actually not a Bad Poetry Monday poem. It was very good in my opinion.
i detest wind. Messes with my hair, my eyes...that's why I will never live in Wyoming.
This was lovely though...