The Wind is My Neighbor

Margery Swett Mansfield

Breaking through the brambles where once a road had been,
I came upon the house that the wind lives in.

(Oh how can we work now, at peace with our labor,
Knowing we have only the wind for a neighbor?)

The wind is the farmer who sows the forest seed,
Her home rises stark in an acre of weed.

Through the doors and windows, like wild invisible waters,
Catch-who-can and tumble, race the wind’s daughters!

O wind, you have hardly a shutter unbroken,
So rough and so reckless are your wild children.

Somewhere walks a woman who was never meant for child,
She plants all the mountains while her daughters run wild.

(Oh how can we rest here, at peace with our labor,
Knowing we have only the wind for a neighbor?)