Among the Mandolins

by Charles Hibbard

  This very wind

  This very wind

  has sailed the scribbled isobars

  a hundred times around the world

  since its question, chanted by maple, oak,

  and beech, first woke me

  one night, two thousand miles

  and sixty odd years ago.

  Today, muse of dry

  eucalyptus leaves below

  a low October sky,

  it’s asking again.

  I am still, listening,

  and still foolishly

  hoping to know

  something.

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