‘Wind’

Were you there,

In the beginning,

In the garden,

When the Lord saw that

Everything was very good?

What did you see there?

How did it look

In the days before sin,

When the world was fair and young,

The stars, the sea, a stag?

They lie on the other side

Of a chasm from us.

But you bring us tidings

Of them, when you gently

Sway the leaf-bearing limb

Swathed in sunlight,

When you lift the lock

Of a lady’s hair,

When you waft to our noses

The paradisal

Fragrance of flowers.

But even these greetings

Are gone from us now,

As we flee further

From the garden

Into sealed enclosures

Where you cannot reach us,

Servants of the Information Age,

Toiling in a twelve-by-twelve world,

Manipulating binary bits

All the day and all the night.

Our only notice of you comes

When evil powers cruelly use you

To fordo:  the sudden gust

Of a thunderstorm,

The spiral gales

Of twister and hurricane.

The day is spent;

The sun has set;

The evening breeze is blowing.

Were you there?

In the beginning?

I feel your breath

Cool against my skin

And know that you were.

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!