Wind

By Cliff Lake

 

Wind

 

A hot wind,

Feral, fatal,

And somehow focused,

A live thing seemingly,

Yet its wake is death,

Desiccation,

And dread.

For those that survived it had heard.

Susurrations,

Sibilance,

Sorcery.

This was a Sending,

A commit from afar,

A malevolence wrought.

The black work of a warlock unnamed,

Unknown,

Unexpected.

His incantations murmur beneath the gale,

Writhing wordings whistle and wail,

Indiscernible and still distinct,

Whispers in a tongue from some place shadowed.

Those that hear it go deaf,

Or go mad.

Those are the lucky.

Some are withered where they stand,

Their essence stolen seemingly from within,

Left empty,

And yet alive.

They will not recover.

And these too are yet lucky,

For there are those seemingly untouched,

Yet minus their very will.

These spend their remaining days at nothing:

They move not.

They speak not.

They eat not.

They have a madness of stillness,

None remain that can construct the coffins

They will never inhabit.

Authorities arrive

Seeking explanation they will never have,

For the still do not tell,

The mad say too much and too little both,

And the deaf will only shake their heads,

Not daring nor capable of

Repeating what they had heard.

A hot wind blew,

Feral, fatal, and somehow focused,

And then it was gone.

Little is said of it now,

Save for these poor lines,

And I have not been believed.

My daughter waves to me now,

Her signal for the evening meal,

I have not heard her voice these many years.

Not since…

Never mind that.

But should a strange blow come your way,

Should it speak,

Should it rob what it may rob from any,

Stop up your ears,

Close your windows, your doors, your eyes,

And hope.

 

Cliff Lake 9/11/2024

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2024

Location: Wichita, KS, USA

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