Three Winds

I go to the top of the risen hill,
above the trees, beyond the grass,
where only hard ground lives
—and three winds mingle, whispering,

all merging in a jostle.
They use my body frame to make sound
and, listening, I hear, as they tell
where they’ve been and where they go:

You, man, with a gravestone in your heart,
let us shake your woes away
and they do, they really do,
they rattle my teeth with generosity.

I retreat,

my cold hands in empty pockets,
full of the wisdom of the great silence.

Clive Donovan has three poetry collections, The Taste of Glass [Cinnamon Press 2021], Wound Up With Love [Lapwing 2022] and Movement of People [Dempsey&Windle 2024] and is published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Crannog, Ink Sweat & Tears, Prole and Stand.