I have always loved the wind:
chimes gabbling as fast as they can
like a toddler just back from the park,
the creaking of trees who know
they must let themselves bend again,
again, the new sounds the house learns
to show how alive it is. Everything
in movement, even those things that cannot
move on their own. Others feared the ghosts
pushing shopping carts in empty parking lots
but I thought of breathy beings wheeling away,
joyful. Leaves sparking up
and across, like being carried
by a clear stream but lighter. And me,
a word from the mouth of the world,
spoken almost into flight.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 2.
Katherine Riegel is the author of Love Songs from the End of the World, the chapbook Letters to Colin Firth, and two more books of poetry. Her work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, One, Orion, Poets.org, Tin House, and elsewhere. She is co-founder and managing editor of Sweet Lit, and teaches independent online classes in poetry and creative nonfiction. Find her at katherineriegel.com.
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