William Greenfield’s Why I Love the Wind feels like a hymn to movement and renewal. The wind here is no threat-- it is a child perched on the shoulder, a reminder of vitality, an unseen musician coaxing songs from the world. The poem celebrates the elemental force not as destruction, but as memory, song, and blessing.
Why I Love the Wind by William Greenfield
The wind is something new,
consummated by the gods
to bring me the scent of pine,
is something I can balance on
my shoulders like an infant
at the fair, not so heavy as to
weigh me down, but there
to remind me
of things still living as dead
leaves skitter in its wake, as
maple saplings bend to its
power.
Let it set the walls to quake
and raise the settled dust,
and I will celebrate its birth
and listen
to all the songs the wind
can play.
Illustration for the Poem
The Kennebec River, Waiting for Wind and Tide, 1860
William Bradford (1823-1892),
Romanticism | Genre: Marina | Medium: Oil on Canvas
Bradford depicts ships lying still on the calm waters of Maine’s Kennebec River, their sails reflecting in the glassy surface beneath vast, glowing skies. The scene conveys both maritime grandeur and the quiet anticipation of nature’s forces.