The Wind

Even the wind has no direction,
shifting anyways up and down
pummelling her way about.
She takes with her soft pollens,
the residue of summer
carried across the sky
like Chinese kites

that ride the air as acrobats would.
And in that summer we turned
our faces to one another and lost
the art of the isolate,
the one with no discussions of love,
walking away
touched with tired eyes

lecturing the winter in:
the frost his eyes, the snow
his hair and the rain
his kiss of destiny.
But now, like the wind,
neither of us has direction,
moving our mouths in idle

speech that means nothing,
carrying the weight of one
another's burdens.
This is all wrong, there
never were such intentions.
We had the earth struck luck
of lovers who move among the lilac

murmuring names and soft
tokens of joy, watching
the sun fall into night,
then mother moon blossom
wide into the evening's shadows,
silvered and wandering.
But now we do not meet the time

of day, our efforts lost, like
the pollens on the wind's breath
which has no intention
of setting them down
into the soft fields of earth.
And in the end our eyes have
emptied, managed the steel of youth

that has broken the way
to the future,
dislocating sense,
our grey mouths disconnected,
shutting on nothing.

John Cornwall

If you've any comments on his poem, John Cornwall will be glad to hear from you.