Winds

About a decade ago, while cross-country skiing on the Big Field near Lake Whitehall, the wind whipped the snow sand that floated on top of packed bergs. It hit my face and stung. What was the experience of the first humans to come this way, blown on the winds? The Bump/Beach ancestors came on wooden ships landing on the New England coast. Did the first Beach woman to give birth know that I would be in the familial line? What did the wind feel like to her standing on the deck of that ship? The wind blew her in and kicked and swirled the line throughout the land. Standing in the sun I stretched my back and felt the hot desert wind coming from the southeast. The wind is carrying the seeds of desert wildflowers. The wind will bring monsoons in July. The wind will carry my son across continents and seas to his life which will not remain here. The wind is bringing the migrating birds who stop and sing for a moment in time. I have not felt the bitter winds coming down the Mississippi river in January for many years, but my skin still remembers. I often think of the large osprey that glided on the wind over my garden the moment my mother died.
When you stand next to a saguaro cactus the wind moving through brings the sighs and songs of the ancestors to your ears. Their stories are caught on the cactus spines until the wind picks them up again and sends them along. We are dreams and stories in time. We will be sand in the wind in our day. When our ashes soar on the wind we will sing. copyright 2009 vickers