What the Wind Said - After Stanley Kunitz

By Dianne Mason

The wind this morning romped

through the willow oak trees,

kicked their brown-sword leaves back

and forth across the grass.

They looked to me like a school

of nervous minnows darting

and leaping, rushing first

one way and then another.

I watched the wind this morning

wrestle velvet petals from my

late-blooming camellia bushes

and bank them like snow

along the neighbor’s fence.

I lingered briefly and then went inside

and shut the door. I plodded up the stairs

to work, and now I sit at my crowded

desk, running my fingers through my

once-dark hair and staring at the

lonely desert of an empty page.

Outside my window, the wind whistles

with impish delight as if to say:

Come out, let’s play. Come out, let’s play.

You only have today.

You only have today.

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Dianne Mason is a college English teacher who lives in Matthews, NC. Her poems have appeared in Broad River Review, The Main Street Rag, County Lines: A Literary Journal among others. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was a finalist in the 2024 and 2025 Ron Rash Poetry Award Contest.