How Much
This wind is not enough.
Hardly out of the southwest,
low airs pace too slowly
to nudge a chill that seems
gentle rather than tough.
Electrical wires, dumb-
slung in catenaries,
summon no creaking.
No moan slights in Common Time,
ranging barely below human
hearing. No intonation
numbs from these power lines. No
voice murmurs as this breeze
eases out over the field and lulls away,
gone before reaching the lake shore.
Breath builds. Later
today, seed crowns, little
weathervanes fletched upon grasses,
will swing a few more points
to the south, fetching leeward
as this wind freshens. If one
could slough pain, let wind come.
For now, its luff
brings news of rain. Soon
wires will sing wounded harmonies
as if no discord
could be enough.
Peter Munro is a fisheries scientist who works in the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, and Seattle. Munro’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in such journals as Poetry, the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Iowa Review, the Birmingham Poetry Review, Rattle, and Poetry Northwest. Listen to more poems at munropoetry.com.