Like Odysseus, after encountering the god,
I’m carrying my bag of winds—
the eight winds I learned in Catalán
from dictionaries,
mestral, xalac, migjorn, and then
the wind across the mountains
coming from the north.
The winds found on that other island
years ago, while looking for temples, fish traps,
the old sugar cane shipping port.
The pastures upswept by the wind,
the long grasses and wild sugar cane shoots,
only the gray horse and green chair fixed
within the constant motion of the rest.
I learned it's called 'apa'apa'a, that wind,
blowing always in the same direction.
And I was charmed, learning
to call the wind by name.
A hand-lettered sign along the road
at the crossing between ancient districts
welcomed the winds to Kohala.
The wind was even in the house at night,
and an Italian aria returning from far
places and old times, carried precariously there
along with the low voices of the sacred bells.
And here? Kitesurfers
carried by wind and waves,
by curls of eyebright silk.
That sure, that light!
Will these be loosed and lost like those others,
or might they blow me always safely back to shore,
to some untroubled harbor which I’ll recognize
as mine?
image: Jan Jansson, 1650, compass rose surrounded by wind heads, Volume 5 of his "Novus Atlas" of the Ancient World.
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