I LIKE THE WIND

We are at or near that approximate line

where a stiff breeze becomes

or lapses from a considerable wind,

and I like it here, the chimney smokes

right-angled from west to east but still

for brief intact stretches

the plush animal tails of their fires.

I like how the stiffness rouses the birds

right up until what’s considerable sends them

to shelter. I like how the morning’s rain,

having wakened the soil’s raw materials, sends

a root smell into the air around us,

which the pine trees sway stately within.

I like how the sun strains not

to go down, how the horizon tugs gently at it,

and how the distant grain elevator’s shadow

ripples over the stubble of the field.

I like the bird feeder’s slant

and the dribble of its seeds. I like the cat’s

sleepiness as the breeze then the wind

then the breeze keeps combing her fur.

I like the body of the mouse at her feet.

I like the way the apple core I tossed away

has browned so quickly. It is much to be admired,

as is the way the doe extends her elegant neck

in its direction, and the workings of her black nostrils, too.

I like the sound of the southbound truck

blowing by headed east. I like the fact

that the dog is not barking. I like the ark

of the house afloat on the sea of March,

and the swells of the crop hills bedizened

with cedillas of old snow. I like old snow.

I like my lungs and their conversions

to the gospel of spring. I like the wing

of the magpie outheld as he probes beneath it

for fleas or lice. That’s especially nice,

the last sun pinkening his underfeathers

as it also pinks the dark when I close my eyes,

which I like to do, in the face of it,

this stiff breeze that was,

when I closed them, a considerable wind.

by Robert Wrigley