Father Wind
By John Herlihy

My father, the wind,
Whom everyone knows,
Gathered together in billows,
Thar she blows.
If you could see him,
He would look like pillows,
Of smoke, cotton and cloud in the willows,
On his way thru the countryside.

What begins as the faintest hint,
Rustles the leaves in greeting,
Then becomes the gentlest breeze,
Stirring everything in sight with movement.
The wind carries smells wrapped up on its back,
The aroma of tree bark, jasmine and smoke in a sack.
Autumn leaves and faded flowers take up the rear,
Their fading odors full of shame and fear.

Nothing stops the wind and its eternal sway,
From moving forward on its imperious way.
Neither wave, nor ship, nor soaring eagle,
Can resist the force of such presence most regal.
Even the clouds billow and fluff,
Shaking their feathers as if in a huff.
Words come easy with something on their mind,
But they are nothing but wind and often unkind.

The wind comes, the wind goes,
His age-old passage to find.
Thar she blows,
She has something on her mind.
With a huff and a puff,
It goes anywhere as though blind.
Wind’s fortune cannot be fully told,
Only a fortune-teller would be so bold.

Hark, I hear a breeze stirring;
The dragon flies are purring;
A hint of jasmine passes by in greeting;
The moment now gone by in fleeting.
The air is cool and sweet in clear measure;
It invades the world as a sacred treasure.
Who could imagine its mysterious power,
A lone leaf in the wind gently waving by the hour.