Invisible Fingers of the Wind Wind Wind

                                                                      by Ralph Fletcher

Wind is a mysterious traveler,       

a spy shrouded in secrecy.

No one knows where it came from.

No one knows where it goes.

Wind is clearer than creek water,         

paler than the faintest ghost.

Nobody has ever seen its face           

but watch smoke sway above a campfire

and you might glimpse wind’s shifting shape.

wind didn’t start with a capital letter     

won’t end with a period or question mark

it’s like one long continuous blow-on sentence

Ancient wind told fantastic stories       

before words had been invented.

Its middle name is once upon a time.

It sang songs, lovely but lonely,       

long before triceratops roamed the earth.

But when it swirls down the sidewalk,            

twirling bits of paper into a dizzy dance,

old wind turns frisky as a newborn pup.