He knows we cannot trust the wind, and yet,
“Listen,” he says, and so we do, and wait
patiently underneath the frozen trees.
But hearing nothing in the wind but wind,
we start to leave. He shakes a finger, no,
and smiles, and so—hoping to catch a hint
of what it is he thinks he hears in all
this steady innuendo of the end—
we wait some more. But listening for what?
More windy variations on a theme
of nothing? A whispered rumor of what is?
We watch him as he smiles, eyes closed,
swaying in rhythm with the ebb and swell,
then looks at us, and bows, and leaves us here.