To the Northern Winds July 4, 2002

Sitting in cabin kitchen with Vivian
meditating with eyes open
following breath out nostrils
the day clear and beautiful
but cold, and windy as hell

it's heaven up here in Canada's north country
no inkling of industrial air pollution
not another human being within 50 miles
just Vivian and I reenergizing our love
and daily nightly mercurial wanderings

forest dust blows from here through the hemisphere
it slips through the eyelid & the screen door
nests between the molars & under the tongue
it can make a nation crazy
or cause a dog to sit up and take notice

It's been a crazy fucking year
full of death and the fear that creates more death
full of heightened alerts & habitual nightmares
full of bedroom intruders dressed in terrorist beards
& talking busted syntax on the Pentagon's porch

O Northern Winds can you blow some uncommon sense
into our nation down below?
Can you wine & dine us this year with a cleansing tempest?
Can you whistle and make our giant egos disappear?
Can you help us elect a new president?

The terrorists have murdered innocent lives
and given America's insane right an unnatural gift
From up here where the winds howl
it's obvious nature abhors a fundamentalist judge
and the whole pyramid scheme of corporate theft

The Northern Winds blow the leaves hard
but take time off so the trunks can rest
We remember the World Wars and the inhuman slaughters
we recall the old famines and the new disease
yet have begun to build another dangerous century

Last night ravens flew figure 8's near the cabin, playing
in yr gusts. O Winds, we have learned to cross large continents
to embrace our love. Can you shake us out of our future-destroying
weaponry for a new start? Tell the children:
another new century can begin whenever we choose.

Eliot Katz, NYC
(written in Alberta, Canada)