BJZ Poems and Musings

For some reason, maybe my thinner frame, maybe because wind is disorderly, and I am somewhat of a neat freak, but I really dislike wind. I wouldn’t last long in North Dakota, or on a windy seashore in Maine. Sailing never called to me. Or hang gliding, or kite surfing. So when we were hoping for a warmer, hospitable May this year, after a colder and wetter April, a numbing westerly wind was the dominant weather feature for the first two weeks of the month. Our home sits on a wooded knoll above a big bend in the Huron River and the wind likes to chill itself before lifting off the river and rising up our bluff and targeting me whenever I venture outside. A down coat in May while splitting firewood? Come on! So, this poem reflects on that wind. I would note that after a few warm days, it’s back again.

May Winds

We are Michigan, not some forsaken
North Atlantic isle, yet most of May
A carefree, cold wind has kept
The chimes tolling, the branches waving
The flowers bobbing and shivering.

Red-winged blackboards soar, wings fixed,
Orange epaulettes on display,
Into the feeders to battle purple-headed grackles;
Who sport wind-blown Elvis-like head feather flip backs

The greening somehow shrugs off the wind,
Each day leaves anew, leaves enlarged;
Fern sprigs erupt in the damp shade
Grass grows an inch a day.

So, me, who despises the cold wind,
Must begrudgingly accept, realize,
That it needn’t be personal, can be tolerated,
Even engaged. Puff out those feathers,
Generate some muscle heat, put on a wind breaker.

Nature knows that I know that warm,
Windless days will soon arrive;
And I will complain about it being too hot,
Too humid, fervently wishing
For a steady, cooler breeze.

Brian J. Zink May, 2026 Copyright rules apply