Summer winds rip through the funnel of the Stockton bar and down across the Tooele valley floor where we live.  Or they fly in from the north across the Great Salt Lake.  Either way they tear at the siding and roof shingles and rattle the house, making sleep impossible.  Frightened children wander to the foot of our bed hoping to be welcomed up to sleep with us, happy even to sleep on the floor curled up in their quilts.  This poem describes how nothing frightens me like the wind.

WIND

Nothing frightens me like
Wind:
a million whispers rushing
through a million forest leaves,
coalescing into crescendo and
a horrifying howl,
a gusty, sibilant scream,
a prolonged and violent accusation.
Wind
rattles my home,
shakes my bed,
shivers my nerves.
Wind
disturbs my well-gelled image,
exposing me: unkempt and scattered.
Wind
bellows dirt into my eyes and nose and throat;
I squint and cough and curse.
Wind
batters and tears as
I fight for footing.
Wind
whips up the storms
that stir the deep and hidden things,
monsters that slink mysteriously about,
revealing themselves in
cursings and covetings, in
lashings and lustings.
Give me
driving Rain,
booming Thunder,
sizzling Lightning,
desiccating Sun:
I embrace them.
But keep away the
Wind.