The Wind that Speaks Between Us

The Wind that Speaks Between Us

“The wind is a warning,” I tell the child.
“No, it’s a game,” she says to me.

I watch her chase the breeze barefoot across the hills.
She laughs as its breath scatters the field to dandelion puffs.

In the fluff, it whispers secrets only children can hear.
She doesn’t see all the other things its gales carry away.

It tumbles down her stick house under the oak’s shade.
I call her over. A gust pulls her bonnet off.

I point to the destruction. See her cry the loss.
“The wind doesn’t ask for your permission, child.”

“Look at all this magic in the air. See how far it goes,”
she says in an unfolding smile, her hands full of pappus.

“It will also leave you behind if you don’t watch out.”
I see the pappus brush my skin.

There is a tug of dandelion memories, before my
bones hollowed, before my hands forgot the weight.

Then the nothingness returns.
“Why do you listen, but not believe?” she tells me.

I tell her—“Because the wind remembers what we forget.”
She stares into its movement. I stare past it.

She says, “The wind is a promise.”
I do not answer.