This Windy Day

From  10/6/10

When I was 14 I had to recite a poem at school and I memorised a poem that began, 

'This windy day brings all dead things to life.' 

That was 35 years ago and to this day that is the only line I remembered. 

Because I was going to do some work on writing poems with the women who attend my creative writing group I set about to once and for all FIND the poem! 

I so love Google!! - I typed in the words I knew and the first hit I got was someone else asking the same question!

So I found it eventually and discovered it was written somewhere around 1939 by a Rev Dr Andrew Young, a Presbyterian minister in Scotland, who was an amateur botanist. After a lot of diligent searching, I even found the actual lines. I am so impressed with myself and so happy after all these years to have the poem in my grasp! And no wonder it made an impression on me - it is amazingly full of metaphore and impressionism.

A Windy Day

This wind brings all dead things to life,

Branches  that lash the air like whips

And dead leaves rolling in a hurry

Or peeing in a rabbits bury

Or trying to push down a tree;

Gates that fly open to the wind

And close again behind,

And fields that are a flowing sea

And make the cattle look like ships;

Straws glistening and stiff

Lying on air as on a shelf

And pond that leaps to leave itself:

And feathers too that rise and float,

Each feather changed into a bird.

Andrew Young