by Carol Christy White

*Poetry winner in the 2nd Annual Arizona Writer’s Conference.

Zephyr slips around stiff and swaying branches

spends a moment with every individual leaf

moves on to the next tree trailing a tailing of movement

I am mesmerized by the gentle play through the green

this wind that is the same pushing and turning

heavier trees with creaking and groaning and snapping

Each leaf is caressed in a massage of some godliness

making me want to climb into high bending limbs

to be touched that same way    like I’ve not been

I can’t help but watch the tops of tall trees before the rain

their arms all lifted up in the constancy of perpetual prayer

as the airstreams rustle them like a benign distracted parent

What if these small breezes all the way to Kansas twisters

are not just the breath of our god but god itself

speaking in a thousand tongues all at once and everywhere

What if that air is a measure of love and indifference

of gentleness so great our hearts are broken open with it

and of supremacy our bodies and things are broken as well

What if that weather force is traveling with purpose

gathering all the old ghosts and the new ghosts

inviting all the ghosts­-to­-be to join in one voice

Carol Christy White has been a poet for a very long time. A poem was first published in the Kentucky State Poetry Society’s Pegasus Jr. when she was 12. Since then she has been published in a number of regional poetry journals in the US and published several chapbooks of poetry, the last one called “Rain.” Christy has presented poetry workshops in Arizona and Kentucky, as well as read at numerous open mics across the country and in Scotland. She is the past president of Arizona State Poetry Society and currently serves as the ASPS treasurer, and hosts a monthly poetry critique group in Scottsdale, Arizona.