The smallest touch

The air rushes past and I can see

the silhouette I’ve left in the gust.

Arms spread, in flight (if it were possible I could muster it)

reaching for the ripples that play about my fingers

as if I might grasp them and pull them in close

to feel their warmth and smell the journey they’ve taken

to get here.

After, I wonder

if they have met me before and that is why

the wind comforts me so.

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Afternoon in an empty park

The sun rests on my eyelids as I lie back,

the woven rope of the round swing-seat supporting my neck and spine

as I sway to and fro,

legs kicking out for momentum.

A cradle I’m rocking myself,

an afternoon whose warm hands soothe me without effort

and the breeze whispering its encouragements in my ears.

So this is what it means to relax.

Weather change

If the breeze could speak, I wonder if it would tell us where it’s come from.

Tell us about the butterflies that have surfed on it, or the parachuting spiders waiting to paint the trees with silk.

How many bodies it’s brought together,  channeling life from flower to flower,

catching dreams and sending them by sky post to Mary Poppins.

Would it tell us about the cut trees it’s seen, the hunters who have no hunger to warrant hunting, the water that was ice and the islands not made of rock or soil, but plastic?

Maybe it already is speaking and we just haven’t learnt how to listen.