The Wind                                                                                                            —J.R. Solonche


The sky is broken into clouds.
The clouds are broken into the children of themselves.

Trying to get out, the wind has broken its neck against
the wall at the end of the world.

The twigs have broken from the branches.
The leaves have broken from the twigs.

The earth is the heart of the sky, and it is breaking.
The world breaks every promise it makes.

It has never been taught to keep them.
Every promise is broken twice, once before and once after.

The earth never breaks its promises.
You can always tell where the wind has been.

It tells you with the song it learns there.
The wind minds its manners.

It knocks—one, two, three times—before it enters your house.
Of all the animals, the wind loves the horses the most.

Of all the birds, the falcon it has yet to conquer.
The stems of the lilies have been broken in half.

The heads of the lilies have been broken off.
The petals of the lilies have been broken away.

The wind is not afraid of the dark.
The wind makes its own way in the world.

The wind whistles while it works.
The wind takes your breath away, then breaks it.
 

JR Solonche

J.R. Solonche has been publishing in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s. He is author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions),  Won’t Be Long (Deerbrook Editions), Heart’s Content (Five Oaks Press), Invisible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Five Oaks Press), The Black Birch (Kelsay Books), I, Emily Dickinson & Other Found Poems (Deerbrook Editions), In Short Order (forthcoming from Kelsay Books), and coauthor of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2017