KS Culbreth

November’s Wind

Six thirty. Evening.
Black already.
Strong wind from Ida
that has finally reached
landfall.
Cold rain all day.
Cold rain.

This is the wind that blew
across the Atlantic.
Over black water etched
with white froth and
cresting waves,
that blew along
the midlantic states
and finally here,
skittering leaves
across this
empty parking lot.

Each wind-blown leaf
a wild and spirited
dance, each a unique
choreograph, light and
fast.
But each leaf
eventually caught in
the thicket until the
dance becomes a twitching
and stillness, where
the leaf hangs until
it returns to the soil
that nourished it.

Each wave a spectacular
triumph, rising above all
the ocean once before being
absorbed back
into the great mass.

How old we are all getting.
There’s no humor in it any more
in denying it or trying
to celebrate it.

Too many of our memories
have been scattered by this
wind.
Too many of us have
been buried by those
lightless waves
that pound upon us.

I’ve lost track of
how many Novembers
have come between us.

Too many to put in perspective.
Like trying to determine
where exactly this wind
has been today, yesterday.

Where it was nearly fifty years ago.