The Wind Calls

 

The wind calls me: it rustles leaves

Dressed in their autumnal finery,

Varicolored, they dance, and ask me

To join with them in the swirling cascade-

Reds, golds, yellows, oranges: how I love

The season. I haven’t danced in a long time.

 

I know something the leaves don’t:

The whirling, swirling madness is

A dance of death. In order for there to be

A dance next year, this year’s dancers

Must fall to the ground exhausted,

And give themselves up to nourish

The generation:who will come in spring..

 

I used to dance: didn’t know better.

Thought I would live forever,

Listened to the wind and capered on

Oblivious to what my heart was telling me.

Perhaps it wasn’t my heart. I confuse

Heart and brain so often. Whatever it was

Talked to me of the leaves’ death,

And I so did not want to die.

I stopped dancing.

 

All things die in time,

Nothing lives forever, and to live

In fear of dying is to have died already,

And that’s worse. So I hear the wind

Calling me, beckoning me with its cool breath

And I see my partners, all dressed for the ball,

Twirling in the branches. They look so splendid.

I have decided to join them, fate be damned.

I want to dance, I intend to dance,

The wind invites: I will dance.

 

October 18, 2010

Chip Bergeron