I Learned to Love the Wind

All my poetry is deeply personal, reflective, rooted in my faith in Christ, and very inspired by nature and each of the four seasons… And some of these poems are just begging to be made into fuller stories.✨️

Published in 2023, Swan Song of a Scarecrow holds the legend of the daisy which never bloomed (but did), the tree that wanted to hold life (and did before it ever did), the roses which would like me to know that even when I miss so many beautiful things, I don’t lose a thing, and the hillside which may have missed its wildflowers when the house got built, but enjoyed a new kind of wild-flowering by simply watching the family of that house grow.💐💖

You can see how I have given nature its own voice and POV, so this Garden of Green Fables series is not a new thing for me. But now I am really leaning into that kind of storytelling and expanding the world my poems first began.

On the blog this Thursday I will share the official title + synopsis of our first novelette in the Green Fables series. In the meantime, you can find Swan Song on Amazon if you want to catch a glimpse of the storied world to come.🫶 But I do want to share the full original poem from Swan Song of a Scarecrow which inspired our first novelette in the Green Fables series.

Like her, I was tired. Time bent me slowly, but it was lack of joy and the story I wasn’t living that cracked and edged me out. Arms held open, hollow. I’d lived a life before her, or at least the one they gave me, but she moved in, carefree. And I thought, now, maybe.

And I don’t blame her for the years that passed. Her shoulders bent like mine, curled around her aching heart. I knew that pain too well! So, I resolved to wait. I learned to love the wind right through me. Learned to house the life that chose me. And soon I saw she did, too.

And it was marvelous.

The garden crept in closer, and hope felt like spring. But life fell like leaves. And though the breeze felt lovely, and I smiled as she scattered seeds, I longed for the garden story.

Instead I felt the pain knife sharp. Lightening in my skin. Is this the end of me? Where they decide I am done. They don’t need this tree.

The wind I loved felt bitter. The life in me cracked open. I creaked and groaned and wondered,

Can gardeners hear trees?

But pain lifted its fingers. In its wake, her laughter. And the wind rushed through like life. And I realized the garden had reached me. I danced alongside the flowers. Whistled, so nice to meet you!

And every now and then, I see her gazing up at me. She’s happy, all admiration. Her joy is mine. Here we are! Both in the garden. And maybe we always had been.

But the thing I love the most is swaying to the happy rhythm I finally hold in my arms. Not made by breeze or wind, but by a woman who became a mother, pushing her child in the swing hanging down from me.

-S.V.F.