…and the wind
…and the wind
by stephen tate
and the wind, blowing over the rocks, the seas, the valleys, and the trees, said to the sky, ’tell me how it is that you have fallen; tell me about the day you died.’  And the sky, looking at the vast, at the small, at the large, and at the tall, said to the wind, ’I was here before I met you, and here is where I’ll stay.  Nothing in the Heavens, or earth, can make me go away.  Yes, with each passing year I fade a little bit.  But then again, what is that to you, you little bit of wisp!  You have each day to play, for fun, and to run around, but me I am the sky, and to this earth, I am bound.’  And the wind, nodding slightly, shook its head and sighed, ’I see now how it did happen, dearest sky, my friend.  You are one of the dying ones, always nearly to your end.  But come with me, enjoy this day, and make your spirit light.  For without you, I am nothing, so with me you should not fight.  Let’s enjoy the suns hot rays, and you can ride with me!   I will let
you guide my hand, and would hear you scream in glee!† The sky scowled its fiercest scowl, and looked down upon the wind,’ I do not have time for that, those things that you do hold dear.  I am the sky, and like you said, the end is nearly here!† So the wind floated wearily away, but as it left it turned face skyward once again, ’what will you be doing that you have not done before?  What is it that you live for now, what else can you ignore?’  And the sky watched the wind go, and tears did slowly build.  Rain came hard and fast that day, too fast for a hand to shield.  The sky poured its soul, down upon the world.  What is it that we live for now, and what else can we ignore?
Reads like a child’s fable. Great subject matter with the sky / wind dialogue, but I didn’t leave with any new feeling. Don’t see too many of these come through the door so figured I’d give it a shot to see what everyone else thought.
It reminds me of my relationship with my friends when I go into hermit mode and they all want to go out. Maybe I like isolation, but maybe I should be living it up. What’s the point of the isolation then? Don’t know. I don’t sit around and cry or anything. I actually enjoy the isolation (or I’m just enjoying the comfort of not facing people), but I think my actions sometimes relate to this writing. I don’t know if I was convinced enough by the wind’s argument because I tend to figure my shit out in hermit mode as well as sulk in it, but the writing made me think and I liked that.
I had issues with the flow of it. I don’t know if I react to commas differently than other people but I feel like they slow my reading experience when there are a lot of them, and that bugs me. You can hypnotize readers with a good flow and the message will sort of pour into them without them having to focus too hard. I try to do this by looking at whole sentences as flow alternators within a story rather than manage words within a sentence. I’m developing as a writer and that feels natural for -me- , so grain of salt with it of course. I enjoyed.
I love the rhyming prose, which does read like a fable. There is a sense of isolation and sadness in the poem that seems quite natural. A force of emotion downpours when someone or something leaves us.