The Stirring Night

I’m using a form of poetry that takes off from lines from another poet’s work: a glosa. Hallow e’en. I’m hearing voices in the wind, fingers that brush the door … It’s the time when ghosts walk the night in crumbling castles … The time when we expect the unexpected …

THE STIRRING NIGHT

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***‘The Wind, Growing Up’ – Roo Borson                                    

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The wind. It comes at night,
trying to claw the house apart.
It goes at all the windows.
The windows shudder in their frames. ***         
      

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The wind sneaks under doors
closed and locked
against strangers.
It slams a branch
against the house,
starts the sensor light,
moves drapes
along their rods until                                          
they take flight.
The wind. It comes at night,

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pulling me out of dreams
whispering along the floor
like footsteps,
vagrant shadows
that stretch and shrink,
nightmare’s counterpart.
Then, that wind tosses
fork and trowel
from the gardener’s cart,
trying to claw the house apart.

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The wind. It lifts
a shingle from the roof
flings it hard,
bang, clattering.
Next, from the siding,
it rips the rambler rose,
wreaking havoc
with gale and gust
everywhere it goes.                                                           
It goes at all the windows.

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Glass pulses
under weight of wind
as I huddle in my bed,
blankets pulled high,
imprisoned by sound,
beaten by claims
of fear, hearing only
the wind. The wind’s wild games.
The windows shudder in their frames.

 

***Excerpt taken from “The Whole Night”, in “Coming Home” published by McClelland & Stewart, used with permission.

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