Painting with the Winds

What colour is the wind today,
that Boreas shimmers from the north?
White and blue and shivery grey,
ice and gentians on his breath
to fan the ashes in my hearth.

Does Notus burnish southern winds
to drift bright dreams through summer trees
in opal shades of sea and sand,
gilding with sunflower-tinted breeze
the silver-fingered olive leaves?

Bleak Eurus’ eastern palette’s dark
with gloomy greens as sour as bile
since Poseidon, churlish, stuck his fork
to churn the ocean’s lurching swell
into a surly, heaving pool.

Zephyrus, swaggering from the west —
before whose rage leaf-armies fled —
daubs flaming orange, autumn-dressed:
Sienna browns and clashing reds
spark bonfire music in my head.

Aeolus, ruler of the winds,
can colour pictures with his voice,
transform a rainbow into sound —
old master of melody and pace
he never paints the same tune twice.