At Night, When the Wind is Blowing (A Poem)

At Night, When the Wind is Blowing

At night, when the wind is blowing

And the Chestnut’s new leaves are rustling

I think of the first time I climbed the hill

to this house and met you on the steps.

How the spirit of the place made room for me and

invited me to become part of its story.

I remember happy and conflicted days

of everything new and everything

breaking apart. Of wrenching grief and

the starry-eyed hope of starting over.

And I have started over with you.

Who were the first people to walk over

this ground and build their homes here?

To plant fields and grow food for themselves?

Did they feel the land welcome them too?

Did they walk down this road,

when it became a road, hand in hand

in the moonlight, whispering promises?

Did they kiss under the stars and imagine

a life where every day burned bright

like a summer afternoon because they had

found their hearts hidden in each other,

and their home in this place?

The land beneath my feet and the sky over my head

have moved on since that day,

unconcerned through the seasons

summer, fall, winter, spring.

How I have changed and how I have remained myself,

how we have grown together and have begun to live out

the truth about us–that we belong to one another,

that Fate put us in each other’s paths.

I think about this and other things,

at night, when the wind is blowing.