When I first learned clouds move,

I was three years old. Lesson

in the terror of change. The villain

was wind who pushed and shredded,

the same ghost who chafed my skin.

 

Over the years I developed affection

for breezes, the way all love involves

a tinge of fear. The way I forgave

my own visible breath, leaving.

 

Throughout my life, the winds have risen

until now I see the atmosphere unraveling,

clouds and leaves and dust all one earth-shift.

 

Some say the sunsets are more brilliant

these days. I see them with the same

wariness I glimpse the false rainbow

in an oil slick, poison mistaken

for pearl. Clouds outside my window

 

do not hold the same rain I knew

as a child. Less river, more smoke. Vapor

I imagined into animals now their slow

erasure. Unless we envision a fresh wind.

Until we change the shape of our fear.