Aria

Wind sings, and we're quiet.
She sings. We don't.
It's late in the era of empires
But the wind has been through
This before.  And she's not

That kind. Tonight, America
Battens down the heartland
For another round of spring
Tornadoes. A few more small towns
May more or less disappear.

Here, it's just another flustered,
Gusty weekend full of dust
Blowing from goat pens, rock cliffs
And chewed up trails and roads.
We have our monuments to time

All around us in these parts,
Lately settled by humans of any
Kind, and they remind us
With their flash floods, canyons,
Tumbled slopes and fault lines,

That the wind singing through
Them constantly is not
The greatest voice, not by
A long shot. But she seems
So much more personal,

More like us than water,
Earthquakes, or gravity,
The true titan. She bellows
She howls, she makes music
Among the bells we offer her.

And through her singing only
She does destroy and recreate
Mountains and empires alike.
She sifts it all in her husky throat
And powders our endless chuntering.