Tag: Wind

Prairie Wind

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 10 Comments

Good morning everyone. Hope you’re upbeat about this new week? The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is YAMMER. M-W tells me that to yammer is to
1) utter repeated cries of distress or sorrow: Whimper
2) utter persistent complaints: Whine
3) talk persistently or volubly and often loudly: Grouse or kvetch

So I’ll yammer (2) about the prairie wind. This word is offered by fellow prairie girl, Sgeoil, and I know she will agree that our wind can be rather trying and drying at times. For all that, I love this land and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else on this earth.

Prairie Wind

The wind, the wind
always the wind
lashing and thrashing the trees
endless wind, a friendless wind
wind that will yammer for days

It dries you, fries you
wants to despise you
snatching your own breath away
it pings you and zings you
with knife points of grit and gray.

It silts you, wilts you
when you walk it tilts you,
its howling can drive you insane
and when you can’t stand
any more gritty sand
it hits you with driving rain.

Winter season, more reason
when your blood is freezin’
to abandon this country of woes
cold is deep, snow banks heap
and icy wind pierces your clothes.

September Bully

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 3 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning was BULLY.

Frost was the bully that came last night. It stomped through my flowerbed, punching down the fleshy stemmed balsam plants and blackening marigold leaves. They’re hanging sadly bedraggled as I write this. We had warning and carried into the house some of the prettiest tubs & baskets. I left out the pots of pansies and they were crisp this morning, but have cheered up some. And here’s a poem I wrote some years ago about the bullying wind:

SEPTEMBER WIND

Damp September wind whistles
through an August day, chilling
our summer-browned bodies.
Ever the schoolyard bully, it cuffs us
with an almost icy hand. "Remember!"
It mocks our shivers, our calendar
consultations. Dismayed, we grab
for hours as they bounce away, August
days slipping out of our lives forever.
With sighs we hunt for sweaters,
check the pockets of our coats,
while we’re at it, wash our gloves.
Image by David Strong — Pixabay

Furrowed Fields

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 11 Comments

Sammi Cox has posted another weekend writing challenge.

I’m taking a break from editing this morning and feel inspired by the thought of furrows and wind, so I’ll offer this response:

What’s Left

The everlasting wind
sweeps over the furrowed fields
brushing the topsoil
—what’s left of it —
into the grooves
left by the plough last fall
before the farmer —
weary of everlasting wind,
of watching the snowless fields drift,
— left for good.

I’ve heard enough about the “dustbowl years”
that they blow through my writing at times. 🙂