Winds Poem by Dennis Lambert

Ever was there wind upon this world
whispering sweet or surging savage,
streaming high, or howling low,
over oceans and rivers
across continents and nations,
through forests and mountain passes,
carrying love, carrying hate
from sunrisings
to sunset days

Winds of love there are
moving sweet as zephrs light
to gently stir the curls
of maidens softly singing,
to fair young men reclining
upon aprons soft
caressed by drifting scents
of springtime near:
tenderings of honeysuckle,
and jasmine, of larkspur
and lilly
of morning rose
and yellow daffodil,
gentle waftings
in love with earth,
rain-soaked and bursting,
with wildflower fragrances
that carry us like soft petals
through the gentle air
and moves us to believe
in all the possibilities
of our existence.

Winds of hate there are,
wicked winds that in the distance build,
spawned in places dark and brooding,
till they howl across unholy landscapes,
the hell of Auschwitz, the horror of Dactau,
the bloody sands of Normandy,
the hills of Gettysburg, the plains of Waterloo—
winds that speak of smoke and death’s decay,
that howl down innocence and beat it to the ground,
that tear asunder the gentle word,
and desecrate the softly spoken prayer.
The calm and reasoned mind even
is whipped and torn to tattered shreads
flapping in this madness raging.

Both winds have I felt,
winds of love and hate,
each tossing with special madness,
the souls of Romeo, of Juliet,
of Abel and of Cain—
these winds of our existence
ever building
ever tearing down—
creating or destroying-
flowing through our lives.