1eclecticwriter

I wrote my first poem, in my teens, after standing up to a howling wind blowing across the rim of Les Baux, in southern France. Below me was the Val d’Enfer (Valley of Hell), so named, I was told, because it was the site of attacks on merchant caravans whose masters tried to avoid paying tithe to the lords of Les Baux. My poem sought to express a sense of standing up to challenge.

Now, in my so-called golden years, I live in one of the windiest areas of the USA, the foothills of the Rockies in northeastern New Mexico. As I write, the wind swirls around my home, slamming against the house before fading to a conifer-leached sigh. With my eyes closed, the sounds could be those of the ocean, hitting the Maine coast and splashing me with spray or, from even earlier in my life, the rolling tumult of storm-roiled combers crashing onto Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, below where I stand hanging onto the railing of the boardwalk.

Just last month, the wind lifted tin off the roof of my loafing shed (fortunately no horses were around to be frightened into bolting). I arranged to re-roof the cottage to which the shed is attached, so tonight there is no clatter and rattle, only the almost intelligible language of an ocean of wind, once again attempting to tell me all the truths of the world.

Heavenly Wind

The wind, no matter in what spot in the world I experience it, brings change. Sometimes merely a change in the weather, other times a practical change like the needed, but previously postponed, new roof. The wind, no matter in what spot in the world I experience it, always brings me to inner change.

Awareness of a power beyond my small self, clinging to the boardwalk rail.
Awareness of good and evil across the ages of man’s time on earth as I looked into hell’s valley from the heights where I was sheltered and protected.
Awareness of the power in wind-driven, fragile drops which shattered to spray against mica-rich Maine rocks, before falling back into the sea and rising again to the work of eroding those rocks over eons of time.
Awareness tonight that, living amidst frequent winds, I have placed myself in the perfect outer environment to match the pace of my inner spiritual evolution. Washed by waves of wind-sound, like the Maine rocks, I am inexorably cleansed, my ego eroded to allow the bright mica reflections of Soul to shine forth.

Cleansing started, and will end, with the Word, spoken by the lips of the wind, into the ears of those who wish to hear.