From the works of


Young Trader John Rowand Meets His Bride-to-be


The wind is a widow, hunting,
loping through September grasses
aching to recover April's kisses,
mellow with consent of May
and constancy of June.

She runs through the aspens,
runs through the pines,
flailing the leaves with her hair,
scoring her skin with pine-needle lines.

She topples the rider
galloping high from coulee to hill
fleeing the lips that roll on his ear,
the fingers that rifle his hair.

He falls but his leg will not lift him.

No one to hear him,
none to give aid
but the widowed wind,
who is hunting.

Doug Elves



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