4.14.14 Against The Gusts Of WInd

      The old Ash firmly rooted in the fields by the worn  stream bed today is drinking deeply, remembering it's  parched thirst at the end of last summer, when the grasses turned brown and the heat climbed.

     Overhead, one small sparrow is plucked from the sky by falcon, as a farmer stands outside the dairy store, watching.

   

 Two wild turkey hens make their wa along the edge of the field, and slowly move down into the stream for a drink, as the rain pelts their deep brown feathers and the wind presses against the stand of Birch, leafless and lithe against the dark clouded skies.

     The lone Fox that sheltered in the drainage ditch all winter, whose tracks I would glimpse after each new snow  is long gone; the stream swollen and full to bursting and moving rapidly across cornfields, past beehives, and gardens.

     Once again, I am standing in this spot, watching people struggle against gusts of wind, to fasten barndoors , lug hay out to their horses in the vast fields behind all the houses;  all the students walking along the road, leaning into the vast wind  as it slaps their pants  and coats against them. As   the wild April clouds, heavy with promise of precipitation, race  on by overhead.