Speaking To The Wind

Speaking to the Wind

As I was speaking to the wind one day
he interupted me to say,
Why bother speaking to the wind?
I've heard it all before.
Nothing changes from day to day
it goes on forever more.

Why bother speaking to the wind?
Even if told you'd never see.
Go tell it to that tree.

To what seemed my evident despond
did the tree then respond,

Speaking to the wind I see.
You'd better leave that up to me.
In some mythology or other
the wind himself has got a mother.
No matter how I searched about
there was no evidence to uncover.

From an acorn in the rain soaked earth
through the years from my birth
did I grow and gained this girth.
Growth and change is all I know.
You yourself can also grow.
The earth, she is our mother.
could we ever find another?

To wind then did I set out to explain
what seemed to me to be so plain,
The tree, he is my brother,
for we have the very same mother.

As I was speaking to the wind that day,
he interupted me to say,
Why bother speaking to the wind?
In the rustle of the leaves was laughter.
Tree knows what I'm really after.

Edition revised and updated for 2016

a reply to: pthena

Awesome poem!

a reply to: pthena

I read that several times.

It is really, really good.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

Hi Chirp, I read it three times! Great writing.

a reply to: Quantum12
a reply to: TNMockingbird

Why thank you both.
I think I re-wrote it 3 times, makes sense to read it three times.

a reply to: pthena

Grow and change is all I know.
The Earth she is our mother.

So much I like about this.

a reply to: pthena

It blows.

a reply to: angeldoll
a reply to: TheMaxHeadroomIncident

So this is the fiction sub forum so ...

What does it mean?
About 20 years ago, when I had the first version, I ran wildly through the streets, grabbing people by the shirt and yelling in their faces "The tree is my brother!"

So after I got bailed out of jail and went back to work, I used the poem as a statement of business owner/worker relations. "As I was speaking to the wind..."

At the unemployment office, I thought it a wonderful political statement.

Sitting on the curb with my tin can out: "Growth and change? Growth and change?"

So now I view it as a poem.

a reply to: pthena

The wind and the trees have entertained the questions for aeons and aeons.

(If you ask them on a cold December night, the answers are chilling I'm told.)
(All my puns are intended)

Very nice, pthena. Now I must go look up pthena, and see what I can find.

S&F

a reply to: pthena

It's really good. It reminds me of being alone in the forest.

originally posted by: pthena
a reply to: angeldoll
a reply to: TheMaxHeadroomIncident

So this is the fiction sub forum so ...

What does it mean?
About 20 years ago, when I had the first version, I ran wildly through the streets, grabbing people by the shirt and yelling in their faces "The tree is my brother!"

So after I got bailed out of jail and went back to work, I used the poem as a statement of business owner/worker relations. "As I was speaking to the wind..."

At the unemployment office, I thought it a wonderful political statement.

Sitting on the curb with my tin can out: "Growth and change? Growth and change?"

So now I view it as a poem.

That was an awesome poem! What you wrote above gave me a good laugh. You have a way of making hard times humorous.

a reply to: Matrixsurvivor

What you wrote above gave me a good laugh.

I've been meaning to come back and revise that. Just in case someone accidently was under the impression that I was claiming that the poem, properly applied in certain situations, could lead to elevation to the level of mendicant monk.

I caught a brief mental image of an elevated mendicant saying, "Growth and change?" so I invented a plausible story of ascent.

No, it actually occurred that I was skipping (yes, literally) down the alley way. Upon seeing two of my neighbors walking in the alley, I called out, "Now I know everything!"

Just as I drew even with them, one of them asked, , "Uh what?"

Over my shoulder I called back, "The tree is my brother!"

To my back then one called out, "Whatever you're on; do you have any left?"

By then, I had skipped around the corner so didn't respond.

Beautiful poem, so much in there but so simple.
I agree with above poster that these lines:

Growth and change is all I know.
You yourself can also grow.
The earth, she is our mother.
could we ever find another?

are heartwrenchingly gorgeous.

I'm a big fan!

By the way.. skipping through an alley, yelling "The tree is my brother".. how fun was that?

Keep em coming please!!!!