Their hair is caught in the branches, the wind blew strands upwards
and eastwards, strands flailing. Their cheeks redden from the chill, but still
there is green.
Green buds on the branches, green gleaming grass.
The worn purple corduroy skirt suits this transition. It
carried her though a winter in Duluth, when she couldn’t bear the gray skies
and the wind chill. She put on the skirt, right over her long johns, and hiked
along Park Street to get to the Humphrey building, to the tunnels. By then she
would be warm, and the building’s heat would bring the reverse shock of fogged
up glasses and the scramble to remove the layers; scarf and mittens and coat.
Through the tunnels, underneath the observatory and the Tweed Museum, she would
arrive at the education building, where she had a locker and familiar faces to
greet her.
Now it was spring, no need to take the tunnels. The
wind still blew, still loosened her curls so that might look like a halo, a
wreath, ringing around her dark brow. Cradling her cheeks with yet hint of rose
left in them. The wind chill lessoned, but it still blows.
The wind blows where it wishes.
We cannot beckon it, we cannot stop it. During winter in
Duluth, we fight it. During the summer, we covet it. The lake wind made this
place her home.
