Unrelenting
(a Golden Shovel poem)
by Vaughn Neeld
The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind …

         –Carl Sandburg, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind."

Distant storm clouds press against the
horizon. The wind thrusts probing fingers through screen doors
sending them swinging wildly before they are
violently slammed, jerked, twisted,
and warped, left to hang aslant on
splintered boards, broken
defenseless things on sprung hinges
as in furor, the wind whips the sheets
on the clothesline, and pellets of
grit stain everything blood-red; rain
splashes red mud everywhere. Each sharp swish
snaps the sheets. The wind tears through
the ranks of dish towels struggling to keep a grip on
the line as clothespins snap and fall to the
ground–all defenseless against the savage wind.



 


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