[edit] The Tree Wind

There was a wind
In my childhood
Remembered for the brief sad way
It came into my play,
Stirring the summer tree
To whispering
Beyond my understanding,
Anxious as the swell
Of some far, unhappy sea;
It was a mind
Withdrawn from childish things
Dolls and buttercup chains -
A wind that rose like a secret wave
Caught in a drifting shell.
It came one lonely afternoon:
I did not hear it any more.

But now, that old sad wind,
I know it well;
It darkens the eyes to tears,
sighs back into the years,
When a child sits listening strangely
From a safe shore. ..
Anxious as the swell
Of some far, unhappy sea;
It was a mind
Withdrawn from childish things
Dolls and buttercup chains -
A wind that rose like a secret wave
Caught in a drifting shell.
It came one lonely afternoon:
I did not hear it any more.

But now, that old sad wind,
I know it well;
It darkens the eyes to tears,
sighs back into the years,
When a child sits listening strangely
From a safe shore...