Wind Harp
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Night, gripping the stars,
tightly clutching the moon,
could only hold my glance briefly;
I knew it too well
one look brought back everything
too many jumbles of clustered sky
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so I was thinking of you,
my eyes closed,
blinking open for safety,
fast snatches of night, feeling the wind on my face,
hearing the tumbling leaves
prepare of the shock of rain
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I almost called your name;
funny,
me alone there in the night
calling to unhearing ears
instead of being home safe
out of the impending storm
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funnier still,
it never rained;
I waited, longing for it,
but, well, it never rain;
which was why
at five-thirty in the wind
I found myself asleep
with your name in my dreams
flashing in a torrent downstream
with a mile or so ahead
to leave your name behind
humming as blue
as the red morning air
Ah the pain of the dream of unrequited love. I had crushes but no real emotional involvements on the East Coast so perhaps the ‘you’ I was thinking of in this piece was not a person but the opportunity to be fully out. An opportunity like the impending storm that never materialized.
I enjoy the deliberate play of words that reflects struggle: gripping, clutching, tumbling, torrent. Clutching also implying ‘clutching at straws’ – the striving for unsubstantial, unattainable goals. The moon is always out of reach 🙂
A wind harp (an Aeolian harp) is a real instrument. Often on top of a hill where it can be played by the wind. Sometimes a natural phenomenon created by trees growing in the right spot. Often man-made out of metal of different thickness, set at different angles to carve notes out of the wind. Ethereal. Great fun in cemeteries 🙂 I have a recording of Jan Garabek using a wind harp as part of a sonic texture.
I like the ambiguity near the end – ‘found myself asleep’ – is the poem a dream of that windy hill or did I fall asleep on that windy hill waiting for rain that never came? I’ve also learned to ‘nail the landing’ by this point as that ending is perfect – unexpected & satisfying. The hum of the wind harp bounces the colours into a strange harmony.
TOpoet 