Sonata in the Key of Aeolus

I

The wind

Follows me;

Reflects my mood.



She is

My siren

Singing

Softly.

E

The wind's whisper comes gentle
tonight, stroking harp-strings and
heart-strings, stalking the keys
so softly, she sings silk; her
whistles blow lullabies.  Her breath
brushes back my hair, a simple
stirring of the air, but a caress
just the same? "And yes," she
breezes in my ear, intimate as
lovers, "tonight you are mine, dear,
and I am your sweet Zephyr."

Yet I have known her fierce
and proud, sounding howls to
pierce men.  I have found her
with teeth bared.

On those days, her gales and rage
dissuade.  I stay away.  Power
in her pride, she pelts and
thrashes, singing hell to the rafters
she sets the lights to swinging.  She
buffets, blusters and shoves, her harsh,
shrill shriek pounds our eardrums with
scorn, our gloves and scarves no barrier
to the chill in her lyrics.

And when she screams her torment to the sky,
I long for days when she is but a sigh.

D

We played together, you and I, while the wind shook the windows and rattled the door in its frame.  My notes chased yours out into the night air, only to be whipped away by her fury.

Inside, though, we were safe, with rippling, tripping melodies wrapped around our bodies, harmonies and rhythms tickling our bare skin followed, often as not, by lips, or by fingertips on vacation from their ebony and ivory stages.

Protected from the blast and flurry, the only gust that touched your consecrated flesh was my breath as I sang into your neck.

R

You're gone now, borne off by
that same draught that traces
the places where ear meets jaw,
or neck meets shoulder.  She
wanted me for herself, my mistral
mistress, and she carried you away,
to one or all of her four faces,
her triumph an aria as you went.

She is lust, anger and envy,
she is a glutton, sometimes slothful.
Her pride you always knew, my love,
but the breadth of her wrath
you never suspected.

She plays, I stay, her siren song
the great persuader, and when her
fingers strum the leaves, the rattling
rush soothes my lined brow and
moves me to fond nostalgia.  Her sweet
sonata blows the cobwebs and clutter of
you from the spaces I can't reach
in my mind.  Sotto voce now, the levanter
lightens me, and carries me on.

And when she hums contentment to the sky,
I breathe away my losses in a sigh.