Curse on a Deserving Land

Dark clouds gather at the edge of the sky.
We have one last reckoning, you and I.
And you’ve never met me, you don’t know my name,
But you are my murderer just the same.
In the dust was my living. Unto dust I return.
And when have you shown the slightest concern?

You’ve declared everything your property
But there’s a god for the slave and he’s setting us free.
You’re comfortably accustomed to giving commands,
But winter don’t listen, and won’t stay his hand.
You’ve built out of money an eminent seat.
Now money’s the only thing you’ll have to eat.

Dance with me, honey, one last time
We’re already dead. So everything’s fine.
Dance in the dust till it all blows away.
A mighty wind’s coming, or so they say.

You name yourself safe from the world that you made
But there’s a god in the mountain and I think you’re afraid.
He’s thinking on vengeance and his mind’s going dark
Over field, over fen, over national park.
There’s fires’ll be burning, and no way to fight.
You sold the fire department yesterday night.

Dance with me, honey, one last time
We’re already dead. So everything’s fine.
Dance in the dust till it all blows away.
A mighty wind’s coming, one of these days.

You’ve said your piece a hundred times and one
But there’s a god overhead, of tempest and tongue.
He’s heard, who has not? how the truth you despise.
From such he shall take away even the lies.
A breeze stirs thinly, and the wind turns round
So that you may hear the terrible sound:
The voices of the living. Voices of the dead.
The hurricane howling for your guilty head.
You’ve lied your way out of troubles before
But the wind’s coming someday, of that I am sure.
Dark clouds shall sweep you out of the sky.
There’ll be nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.
You’ll cry to the gods and they will speak not your name,
They’ll say “as you did to others, to us just the same.”
And what happens after, I shall not care.
My friend, that’s your problem. That’s none of my affair.

So dance with me honey, one last time.
We’re already dead. So everything’s fine.
Dance in the dust, just for today.
A mighty wind’s coming, to blow us away.

Song to Setirov

The fury of the sky is before me.
It comes like the shock of noon,
Slaying shadows.

The fury of the sky is before me.
It comes like a great wave,
Washing sweet the shore.

The fury of the sky is before me.
Like the heart of a one
Whose knows both death and life.

Who is the fury of the sky?
Whose is the breath of its song?
Whence comes the holy wind?

The rapture of the sky is above me.
Like the moment when I turn home
From a long journey.

The rapture of the sky is behind me.
It carries me onward
Like a leaf borne on the wings of a storm.

The rapture of the sky is around me
In life and in death.
Into it my soul shall pass singing.

Who knows the sky’s rapture?
Where can I hear his song?
When can I run with the holy wind?

Only you, Lord Setirov,
Lord of the breath of the earth,
Can teach me the song that follows you
Into the fury, the rapture, the holy wind of the sky.

On the Necessity of Genuflection

There was a mighty Ironwood
That stood on Windburn Hill.
Its thousand roots were like a snare
Of iron chain and dead man’s hair
That gripped to death the rocks. The air
Around its crown was still.

There was an ancient Ironwood
That stood and would not sing.
Its knotted limbs were strong and proud.
Its leaves were like a lifeless cloud
Whose white silence is far too loud
To hear the slightest thing.

There was a wicked Ironwood.
It scorned the other trees:
The maple in her scarlet sleep,
The oak in muscles covered deep,
The lindens who sweet secrets keep.
He snubbed them round his knees.

The Ironwood chuckled in his heart
And twisted-smiling said
“I am the lord of sky and sea!
A very god of growing tree!
Let Origyen bow to me,
That I may spare his head!”

The echoes rose from Windburn woods
Wound round with haughty words.
The flying winds were clear and cool.
The cold was innocent and cruel.
The blue was of a tidal pool.
And something heard, and stirred.

A little cloud was drifting,
Before the sun arose,
Up from the western border lakes,
From wind that sun and water makes.
But Ironwood no notice takes,
His eyes are lightly closed.

The cotton clouds were gathering,
Before the sun spoke noon,
Across the west horizon line,
Across the river’s turning brine,
Above the waters strong as wine
Where sounds the singing loon.

The mountain clouds were swelling.
The sun no more displayed.
The shadow washed up Windburn height.
The dust smelled frozen, and the light
Turned grey. The Ironwood flexed his might,
And he was not afraid.

The wind came up the lakeshore.
The wind came through the wood.
Its voice was like a tidal wave.
Its touch was chilly as the grave.
Its song was deep and sad and brave.
Its heart was only good.

The lindens bowed down hastily.
The maple stirred in dreams.
The oak wrestled and groaned, as does
One piling weight on weight because
He can. The Ironwood sniffed, “This buzz:
Some bumblebee, it seems.”

The wind whipped up, and Setirov
Was standing on its peak.
The clouds were torn chaotically.
The grass was tossing like the sea.
The whirlwind roared more rapidly
As its lord moved to speak.

“Hail, Ironwood,” said Setirov.
“From higher than you can see,
Above where skies have no more blue,
Where earth is almost lost to view,
Have I bowed down to speak with you.
Will you bow back to me?”

“The Ironwood,” it snorted back,
“Never, to none, will bow.
The gods, indeed, shall bow to me:
I am the world’s most perfect tree!
But chide me not, thou bumblebee,
Get gone your winding now!”

“To bow to friends in greeting
Is only courtesy,”
Said Setirov. The wind increased.
“Even the lowest crawling beast
Will nod when met. Do that at least
And I will let you be.”

“What mean the threats of peevish bees
To one as great as I?”
The Ironwood scoffed. “My wood is hard.
My secret thoughts I keep and guard.
No wind my limbs has ever marred.
You are welcome to try!”

“The Old Thin One,” growled Setirov,
And not a breeze dared stir,
“In ages past did boast thusly,
And steel, not iron, was his body.
So. If you will not bow with me,
Then you will dance with Her.”

And if the Ironwood made reply
It was lost in the shriek
Of wind released in all its wrath,
Of funnel cloud’s destructive path,
Of Setirov’s most dreadful laugh
On the tornado’s peak.

And if the tree repented then
It was too late. The sound,
The flash of arrow taking wing.
The thunderous hum of taut bowstring.
The light of holy lightening:
He fell, split, to the ground.

Now ironwoods on Windburn Hill
Do not grow half so high
As oaks with shoulders broad and deep,
As lindens keeping bees like sheep,
As maples who in autumn sleep
Send praises to the sky.

Now on the heights of thunderheads,
Where loud winds cry and crowd,
Setirov is the Lord of Storm,
And Kataranya’s Heart is Warm.
So when you see a storm take form
Be wise, and not too proud.

Cold Front

Grey mountains march at the edge of the sky.
Dark mountains glower through a narrowed eye.
From shadowed mountain vales comes a breeze long blest
And the wind rises silent from the dark northwest.
It rushes as it rises like a half-remembered hymn;
A hymn to sing at evensong when hope grows dim.
And the wind sings high and the wind sings low
And none of the windswept people know
How all of the wind died long ago
Yet still knows how to fly.
When grey mountains charged across the ramparts of the sky,
The wind sang a requiem the day it went to die.

The rainbands shattered into soft silver glass
For nothing the was could halt the wind or stay it in its pass.
The black mountains echoed the astonishment of gods
For the wind is as the seraphim, and never counts the odds.
The obsidian mansions shuddered as they felt nigh,
More dreadful than its fury, the rapture of the sky.
And the wind sweeps near and the wind sweeps far,
And none the mansions’ lords there are
Can mark the day or place the hour
When the wind died at last.
The dark towers cowered as the blast went by
And the wind cried alleluia, the day it went to die.

Now grey mountains gather as the light grows old.
A breeze stirs thinly and waxes cold.
The obsidian peoples plume themselves that they need not the sky
And so the wind must come again, to teach them how to die.
The wind shall break their furnaces, and fling their wheels above.
The shall know not how to stop it. They know not its love.
And the wind blows life and the wind blows death.
And the dark world cannot catch its breath
For peal of the bells wind mastereth
And it’s own death-knell has tolled.
And the wind sends the non nobis to echo through the sky
Each eve aniversarial of the day it went to die.

Tornado Watch

I smell it, sometimes, in between the leaves,

Or in the over-the-horizon rain,

Or under sunset colored shadow hills.

It comes like icy nausea. It runs

Along the spine as would a lone raindrop.

It silences all noises but itself.

It is not wind, or if it is, it is

A wind that does not move through mortal spheres.

It lifts no flags. It fills no sails. It can

Be stopped by neither wall nor weatherstrip:

There is no shelter from it. Though I have

But felt it ever as the gentlest breeze,

But, oh, the gentlest finger of that breeze

Does make me dread the hurricane. There is

A certain kind of wind, in every clime,

That sings the autumn’s last recessional,

That gives last rites to all the natural world,
That ends and undermines all lingering works

Which then must lie abandoned and unmade

For other ages to perhaps remark

‘What folly were they after, that they built

So shapelessly, and so abortively?’
The herdsman brings his cattle to the byre.

The reaper speeds the scythe along the corn.

For whatsover that wind finds not yet

Well sheltered, well secured, is wholly lost.

And it is not that wind. But it is close,
As men say tongue when they mean speech, or heart

When they mean love. So I when I say the wind

Is rising, and I fear a coming storm

I hope you know what kind of fear that is,

What otherworldly tempest I look for,

What ruins I anticipate that we

Mayhaps must learn to live in. All the world

That humankind has built is as the leaves

That spring exhales, that summer raises up,

That autumn dries into exhaustion’s hues,

And comes the wind to sweep them all away.