For the Wind

Better a bent back than a bent neck. Tired though the body becomes, truly, the spirit suffers more. Better the glint of morning sunlight on the pine needles, seen only at a certain angle on the rocky mountain ridge, than the glimmer of gold and diamonds in eyes lit by greed alone. Though the hills be ruins of greater peaks gone before, still we go to them, for the rock still remembers its strength, the water still follows the path toward what is low, and thus finds greatness in the sea. Up and down the mountains lead us, and muscles remember their iron in the walking. Better a struggle uphill. Better knees sore from the downhill trudge that is coming than from idle kneeling in the thrall and flicker of candles and fluorescent lights, hidden from the sun that pours itself out and out, for all. Who can have patience for love meted out little by little, for wisdom locked away? To the highest meadows we shall roam, to the eternal span of unfenced plains, to the ocean that washes every shore the same. For there the breeze blows its perfect freedom, open to all who care to raise a sail to borrow of that endless wealth that refuses to be held, like water streaming from the clench of a fist. We flow like that, we go to where the Earth is speaking, we are not returning, we are for the wind.