The Wind

Written with my Thursday night group.  The prompt was “the wind has to stop!”  But I interpreted it a bit differently.

The wind has two stops. It curls down Alhambra Boulevard and stops near the corner of 29^thand R Streets.  It greets the people waiting at the light rail station with the scent of the river, giving them the strength to go home, tend their gardens of tomatoes and basil, and talk honestly with their teenagers.

The wind rises up out of the ocean, and rushes across the spread fingers of the delta and rifles the lace curtains of my kitchen window, finally arriving at my table.  We’ll be sitting there yawning, watching the ice melt in our glasses of mint tea, complaining about the cloud cover and the heat and the government and cable TV.  The wind will rush in, stopping short of knocking us off our chairs.  It will swirl in our ears, saying, “START. Start now.”  And we’ll get up, we’ll eat fresh peaches, we’ll fight fascism, we’ll make art.