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A storm can begin long before the first drop of rain.

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Gales Unseen

By Kerry Ann Wiley

The wind turns north,
then changes its mind.
The branches bend together,
their leaves turned inside out.

No quiet place,
no patch of blue,
no certain way through.

Just ghosts that wander, gales unseen,
and all the places they’ve never been.
The ghosts are caught in swirling air,
storms that passed but linger there.
They twist and turn
and carry what the winds once crushed.

It bends the branches, shakes the ground,
and turns each whispered word around.

One hears a warning in the rain,
the other hears an old refrain.

The hurricane has room for two,
but neither knows what winds blow through
the other, standing inches near,
and hearing what the other cannot hear.

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Some storms end while the wind is turning toward another sky.

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