Knowing Wind  for Wanda
by J. Marshall Jenkins

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:8).

You teach me much about trees, flowers, and grass
You name them, and I rehearse. Soon I forget.
I learn better when you behold them in silence.

I watch you watch them. Then I see their beauty
and yours. As age ripens me, such beauties seem
to know the important things, except their own beauty.

So I watch you behold them in silence, and I see how
you, like them, say little and know much without
knowing your own beauty. I want to teach you

about the wind we observe in the swaying of trees,
the trembling of flowers, the waving of grass,
the floating of your hair about your shoulders and neck.

Yet, how can I teach? I can neither name nor see wind.
I can only see wind’s witnesses: trees, flowers, grass,
and you. Wind cools me, I infer, but I only know

the chill for sure. So it is you who teach me after all,
you and your sister beauties, trees, flowers, and grass,
revealing wind by dwelling in it, forgetting yourselves.

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