Grandpa F's old red barn; a Lisa Birch photo
I love the wind. It reminds me of my childhood home, our family farm on the Saskatchewan prairie.
I could never, ever live in the woods; I get claustrophobic when I can’t see the horizon.
I delight in a summer breeze drifting lazily across my skin and embrace it when it fiercely pushes my hair straight back from my face.
Even on wintry days when the wind is more a foe than a friend, I respect it. I step back as it blasts snow back at us, whips leaves through the yard, and howls above me in the cold, starless sky.
There’s a book I adore and I’m sharing here: “If you’re not from the prairie ….” by David Bouchard
“…My hair’s mostly wind,
My eyes filled with grit
My skin’s white then brown
My lips chapped and split
I’ve lain on the prairie and heard grasses sigh
I’ve stared at the vast open bowl of the sky
I’ve seen all the castles and faces in clouds
My home is the prairie and for that I am proud…
If You’re not from the Prairie, you can’t know my soul
You don’t know our blizzards; you’ve not fought our cold
You can’t know my mind, nor ever my heart
Unless deep within you there’s somehow a part…
A part of these things that I’ve said that I know,
The wind, sky and earth, the storms and the snow.
Best say that you have – and then we’ll be one,
For we will have shared that same blazing sun.
for more please visit: http://www.davidbouchard.com/titles/prairie.htm
