The elements still stand at four.
We’ve exhausted earth. Fire. Water.
Now the wind begs for our leash.
One can hear it shushing through leaves
in tall birch trees. Branches bending gently
on a warm evening in Sextilis.
Can you feel it on your skin?
Conscript the breeze.
Make it work like a donkey
walking in incised circles around
a rotary wheel.
Harness it in sails
to grind the grain to flour,
to turn the hands of a clock
and make the hour.
In the wind you can begin again.
From island to island
from Roma to Carthage, follow this advice:
Use the air to change the way
the world gets by
and the only waste you’ll see
are the clouds moving in the sky.