The Wind Woman - By Ron Bacon
There is a land where the grey ghost trees grasp the ground
with crooked finger roots,
where winter's snows lie white and deep
and thunderclouds clump the skies.
And on the mountain where soft mists surge and blow,
there is a great rock, black and craggy.
But summer comes and rainbows rise
and flowers star the grasses.
Then the wind woman leaves the lands below
and climbs the mountain.
Quietly she comes in the dawn of the morning,
when birdtalk is sleepy and slow.
She sits by the rock in the grass and the flowers,
and she spreads her skirts wide.
And when the sun's bright eye is high over the mountain,
she tosses her head and she unties her hair so it falls
loose and free.
Then she combs it and she plaits it
and she braids it with a ribbon of sky.
She whets her knife on the rock to make it sharp and keen-
once for the east wind, once for the west,
once for the wind that blows down from the north,
and once for the wind that roars up from the south.
She stays by the rock till day's end is near
and evening's airs are chilled.
Then, as night fills the valleys
and creeps over the lands around,
she leaves the mountain
and goes down to the forest below.
And when a thousand years have passed and gone,
the wind woman will return to the mountain
to sit by the rock, to toss her head and tie her hair tight.
She will whet her knife on the rock once, twice, three times
and four on the rock.
Then she will gather her skirts around her
and go down the mountain
to the forests and farms below.
And a thousand years on
the wind woman will come again- and again,
until ten times ten thousand years and more have passed.
She will toss her head and tie her hair,
and whet her knife
and then go down the mountain
to the forests and farms and cities below.
And each time she comes and whets her knife
a speck of rock no more then
the dust of a butterfly's wing
is worn away.
And time passes until a time comes when the rock is worn to dust and sand.
Then the wind woman will call her winds to blow
and the rains to fall
so the sands will scatter
and the rock will be no more.
And when the rock is gone
and daisies grow where it once stood,
one day of Forever will have passed.
Then, by another rock, on another hill,
the wind woman wll sit and toss her head
and untie her hair...
