watching the wind
The wind fills empty air space with movement and sound. When the wind blows, the void above us suddenly has form and power and dimensionality. It can lift a kite. It can steal a balloon. It can fill the air with dandelion fluff. It can convince you a seagull lives to soar.
My favourite way to ‘see’ the wind is to watch clothes drying on a line. Colourful towels, flowered table cloths, patterned pyjamas, and white cotton underwear. They sway together and lift as the wind catches them. Surely the whole line will sail away.
Do you have a clothesline and do you hang out your bedding to dry?
a clothesline in the countryside
Hanging out bedding to dry
~
by the last acre
of oat field
grown golden in the sun
and wind
~
wet sheets billow
up
up and outward
the long husks of the grainheads
sigh like pebbles
sorted by the sea
~
pillowcases
pegged to a blue horizon
tug at the line
cedar masts are set
firm in the island till
~
quilts and coverlets
spinnaker and mizzen
carry me
over the wind-washed
waves of grain
~
Published as: ‘hanging bedding to dry’, Summer 1995, The Amethyst Review 3(2)
© Jane Tims
Your poem brings back happy memories of when I could hang clothes and bedding out on the line – it used to be my favorite part of the day. We had a weather service that would let us know each morning if it was a good, fair or poor day for drying. But now we live in a condo with no clotheslines allowed. I still love doing laundry but I miss hanging it out on a breezy drying day! Very evocative poem! Thank you.
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Barbara Rodgers
August 25, 2011 at 9:33 am
Hi Barbara. I have lots of opportunity to hang out my laundry, but I don’t. I am inspired to begin. Saves energy too! Jane
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jane tims
August 25, 2011 at 7:34 pm
amazing..:-)
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abichica
August 23, 2011 at 7:30 am