August winds

August winds

the winds arrive early this year,
leaning through the last days of winter
with their dry insistence,
moving across the month
huffing and puffing it forward.

august winds always carried
this restless breath
—a stirring in the trees,
a shifting of light,
a sense that something near
is preparing to open.

I feel it in the way
the air stirs up the stillness,
each gust seeming to lift
the long weight of the year
toward its next shape.

soon the calendar will turn,
as these winds press forward                                            

our twentieth year coming into view
—not with fanfare,
but with the steady push
clearing a space                                                            

where days gather themselves
drifting into a line
toward whatever comes.

,