How the wind sounds now

The wind once harbinged better weather
Over the open meadow
Cornflower and Flanders Poppy waved.
Hedge scrub has grown these untended lands
Unmown, pruned only by gusts and gails
Storms that have passed
Leaving fallen boughs lying rotted
Athwart the rutted path.

Now when the wind blows whether
In rending howl or breath soft
The top leaf touched breaks the hush
Tremulously cascades through old growth
The dark ground around the trunk
Is mud and ivy
The cornflower and meadow
Their simple flute and clear view is gone
In a breeze the thick scrub touched rattles
A symphony of scratches, whispers that echo
And we can see no more than two yards.