The winds of life often carry us along. This poem I wrote about my love of nature and all it offers to our enjoyment.
Ode to the Winds of Life
I fell in love at the age of five
With the great outdoor world
And roamed as far as I dared
To the orchard and barnyard
By eight, to the briar covered hillside
And over the top until out of sight
Heard the frogs chirp in the spring swamps
Until the lightning and rain drove me home
Never one to sit and chat
Didn’t need entertained
No herd mentality for this one
Off by myself, and never bored
At fourteen years, stalked the hills
Chopped the trees for firewood
Gathered the nuts and apples
As far away as I could carry the sack
Never sought companionship
Although Brother Bill followed along
When he couldn’t be eluded …
Or was needed
Years sped by and I learned of the rivers
Like the
Tigris Euphrates and Ganges
Overflowed their banks
To give life to the fertile valleys
Saw fire-ravaged forests bloom in the spring
Land stripped for coal and clay
Struggle into life and grow new trees
Saw the wildlife return and nature replenished
Learned that we grow trees
To make baseball bats and houses
And new ones replace the old
And life marches on
Felt the troubled ocean carry the steel ship
Like a cork up one mountainous wave
And plunging back down
Nosing into the froth of the valley
As if to submerge in death
Lady Katrina shook the rigs
And dumped oil like a glazier
Into the Louisiana swamps
Nature’s microbes, ever hungry
Cleaned it up … an easy snack
The hot winds of the Sahara Desert
Fling themselves across the Atlantic
Generating hurricanes to drive the heat north
Keeping the earth gently inhabitable
Decided that God isn’t in the Church
He wanders across the land
And the oceans
The Great Spirit of the American Indian
