Four Winds

At least that many buffet here, and I
erect as the monument despite my hope to be flattened.
If only the winds could take the horse-sobs
that heave from me, wind-whipped
without the grace of speech; if only
these small creatures with amused, skeptical eyes
could offer me their chittering, their business
of fetching and nesting in the fields.
One day I fear the barometer's shift
will shatter the surface of the vessel,
jarring me into bloody words—catastrophe
will fill the strophe then—
Unless, winds, you take my speech and rend it
into untranslatable rainy hootings.