The Wind One Night
You ever feel old inside?
Like a blanket of moss, like lichen on rocks, like mountains.
You raise a feeble hand to your feeble heart and wonder,
There is another way, there is another way.
Starry Night, Van Gogh, 1889
Heaps of wind batter the house at night,
Threatening its stickly frame,
Down North Saint Vrain,
By Eagle Canyon, near Apple Valley Road.
The pithy limbs of the Cottonwood are tired
Like this house, bend and sometimes break
Weary from her cold.
Maybe, if we paid more attention she
Wouldn’t rattle our bones, wouldn’t
Need to alert us so desperately to something we’ve lost.
We could sing to her, bring her flowers,
Recite her a poem in the fading light,
Rage with her, like the moon, paying attention.
No one can be sure, but now I hear
her calling:
“Don’t wish for,
Too many warm days,
In March.”
