Posted by Gerald Bosacker on 3/21/2002, 11:43 am First primeval man, hunting his food, knew But man could never call the wind or turn
YOU CANNOT CALL THE WIND
The wind is wildest of the artful friends
that we abide. When wind allows us share
its vigor, then we know that she intends
it for her pleasures. Wind will never spare
our prized properties, nor pity our loss.
Brash Wind maliciously turns placid air
to storm and sets its path to capriciously toss
down trees in winnows like freshly mowed grass,
shaking steel towers until they too fall.
The wind, like Kings, must be petty and mean
and topple anything that grows too tall
or clutters up what wind wants to sweep clean.
and used the facing wind to hide his scent,
to stalk the meat he'd bite and chew
uncooked. Yet uncalled Wind most provident
did first present to man the appetizing smell
of roasted flesh. The man could never tame
the wind, that Pyrenees cave pictures now tell
us, man did with fire. For when he called, fire came.
it off like fire. Fire capitulated, to be
his lackey, baking mud into brick, burn
-hardening wood and giving light to see.
He took skins from his cooking meats and fanned
his small fires to smelt the metal from rock
and learned to spill the glass from ash and sand.
In one small tick of existential clock
hot fire was tamed in steel and trained to toil
for man. Steam tools ate wood then switched to coal, Stole the motive force of burning oil.
So man enslaved wild fire, but not its dying soul
which fled as smoke, bestowing poison source
as price we pay for captivating flame.
The mocking wind runs free, a feral horse
with fume free power we are loathe to claim.
Let's harvest wayward wind that does not smoke
instead of soot filled flames we rashly stoke.
Gerald Bosacker 2002
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