The Bluster
Lori R. Lopez
Wind shrieks, fit to be tied
Not that she ever could. A futile effort
Quixotic folly to attempt
Like tilting at Windmills and expecting
The blades to fight back
With a smug conceited air the Element
Convulses landscapes. Shivers
A terrain of scrub-foliage barely hanging on
In the chill, a morbid brush with Death
Skeletal fingers strum
Harp strings, porches of danglies and chimes
Soft as Hummingbird wings flutter
The inaudible flapping of Butterflies
Tender strokes, her will
Suppressed, subdued to prove that power
May be gentle too; a great force restrained
Capricious, playful, teasing
Huddled masses of shrub and grass
Boughs and hillsides weathering
The arctic touch of Old Woman Winter’s
Exhalations as vulnerable towns and cities
Dance for Solstice then revel in a new year
A fresh chance, the breath of change
While elsewhere a natural order beyond such
Measures, off the calendars and clocks of menkind
Marks the occasion with a fierce sigh
Caressing a cruel and timeless countenance
Features that symbolize the end of things
The bleakest days and grimmest hours
High above, almost as cold as The Grave
Stars glitter in a night sky like gems of ice
So far away, remotely indifferent
But it is the Wind’s chance to roar and howl
Rampage and prowl, hunt cowering bodies
Strip their warmth, invade their every defense
A period for atonement and grudges
Bitter from the Fall
When a feverish Summer crashes and burns
Resplendent in the leaves that weep
From the branches of trees, the Drama Queen
Writhes and screams her last, unheeded
The atmosphere shaken, turned into a rattlebone
Guster, a twelve-alarm Bluster with a mind
All her own, packing a sledgehammer punch
At every blast of overwrought breeze
Enduring stages of seasonal transition
Autumn a grand and gaudy shift of maternal moods
To the bleakest depressions and sulks of
A Frost Queen reluctant to yield at last for the verdant
Rebirth of Spring, shedding sorrows, spilling
Tears frozen or wet
Resisting, denying, aware it must come
And furious at the thought
A jealous sister, a split-personality
A diamond-edged facet of a complicated whole
And still, beneath the luster
Of snow-glazed figures modeling sculpted crusts
Afraid to move for fear of cracking
Delicate white coats, twinkling veneers
Resembling oddly-crafted cakes displayed
In the window of a very mad baker — silent
Sugar-laden forms of statues bating breaths
Anticipating the shuddery impact
The frigid rustle and sweep
A glacial draft stirring powder, trembling limbs
Uplifting what isn’t attached to waltz with The Diva
In wails and whistles across a glassy stage
Where no audience applauds, no orchestra blows
There is only a blizzard’s tantrum
The raging blood and cyclonic self-rivalry of
A tempestuous core as Banshee Winds
Prevail in a competitive conflicted spirit
Even the Seasons can have hormonal
Outbursts of distemperament —
Lashing and loathing. Polar opposites:
Inflicting rime-laced wither, heat-drenched swelter
Skulking Nocturne, piercing flesh under
Protective layers by daggers and swords before
A tropic gale, a hurdy-gurdy hurricane melts
The Ice Witch’s heart, churned out of climatic throes
Converting as steam her wicked impulse to shrill
Until the next storm.
