From The House of Edward

Wind Advisory

There was a wind advisory for today. Meant as a warning, but taken as glad tidings, for I dearly love the wind. The day ahead was easy to predict when I spied the tops of the tall trees dancing together at dawn. Roundelays and reels, jigs and tarantellas, they wheeled and whirled with abandon while the wind chimes that encircle the house kept a delicate rhythm with the orchestra that played through the branches. It made the old magnolia tree jolly, its stout and leafy limbs bouncing up and down, up and down, in fat green chuckles. It played chase with the birds and loosened the maple leaves who were busy preparing for their colourful November tumble to the garden below. It ruffled Edward’s white fur, thicker than ever now with his own glad anticipation of the colder days to come. Edward responded by running full tilt throughout the sunny garden, leaping and rolling with the wind like a friend. Coats, newly unearthed from hall closets, whipped around the knees of dog walkers who were yanked up the street at at faster than desired pace by dogs who couldn’t believe their good fortune in waking to such a gloriously windy day. On and on it blew, creating shadows that gamboled across the carpet under my feet; shadows that brought the wool patterns to life as bubbling paisleys and animated florals, impossible to catch or to hold. It called to me from outside my window, throughout the long morning, with its promises of a carefree afternoon while I, determined to complete the tasks I had at hand, endeavored not to listen. But soon, unable to withstand temptation any longer, I acquiesced. Laying down my work with a thud, grabbing my coat and my dog, I made for the door.
The wind laughed with a bluster, for he knew I would come out to play all along.
He remembers me of old.

He shouts in the sails of the ships at sea,
He steals the down from the honeybee,
He makes the forest trees rustle and sing,
He twirls my kite till it breaks its string.
Laughing, dancing, sunny wind,
Whistling, howling, rainy wind,
North, South, East and West,
Each is the wind I like the best.

By Amy Lowell, from her poem The Wind