`You Can See the Wind'

The facility in which we stow impedimenta is a labyrinth of narrow lanes and anonymous, one-story, bunker-like units. During a recent visit, we saw drifts of tufted cottonwood seeds in corners and along the base of the buildings. On wings of white thread, millions of miniscule seeds drift for miles. Each tree bears male or female flowers, and their scent is pungently distinctive. A naturalist I know in upstate New York likens it to “freshly laundered linen.”

While I was stacking boxes in our unit, I heard the kids yelling for me from the car. Outside, in a corner, was a chest-high vortex of cottonwood seeds, spinning and wobbling on its axis but remaining in one spot. The wind was stiff enough to whistle and it frightened my 5-year-old. “Twister,” he said, a tad melodramatically. Like electricity, wind is invisible and powerful. We see only what it carries – snow, dust or cottonwood fluff. Twice as a reporter in the Midwest, when I was young and even more foolish, I chased tornadoes with a camera and notebook. Wind, more than rain or sunshine, is my favorite aspect of weather. Seeing the fuzzy tornado reminded me of a lovely passage in Geoffrey Hill’s The Triumph of Love, Section XI:

“On chance occasions –
And others have observed this – you can see the wind,
As it moves, barely a separate thing,
The inner wall, the cell, of an hourglass, humming
Vortices, bright particles in dissolution,
A roiling plug of sand picked up
As a small dancing funnel. It is how
The purest apprehension might appear
To take corporeal shape.”

Let that final sentence sink in, and think about it the next time you observe a gyre of dead leaves or dust.