The Wind Sighs in Vain

Curtains pulled, people vanish from streets
Deep darkness outside cannot show its love

A silhouette walks an empty, lighted house
At the sight of a pregnant moon, dogs howl

The coin cuts east, arcs into a slow west sky
It’s a cold sky; night will never feel its sting

The calling of her name remains unanswered
How do I make friends; how can I touch a soul

Neruda would know, passionate within his life
Sleep has no skin; nights untouched, useless

The mind rattles like red maple leaves tremble
Stems remain attached, unsnapped, devoted

They shiver with the gentlest breeze, waiting
Clinging to a lost love as the wind sighs in vain

 

 

Dan Pohl is a professor of English composition at Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson, Kansas. His first book of poetry, illustrated by his daughter Jessie, Autochthonous: Found in Place (Woodley Memorial Press, 2013), won the 2014 Nelson Poetry Book Award sponsored by the Kansas Authors Club. His next book, also illustrated by Jessie, is Anarchy and Pancakes (Spartan Press, 2018). He lives in Moundridge, Kansas. People can find his work published in three anthologies: Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems (Woodley Press, 2013), To the Stars through Difficulties (Mammoth Publications, 2013) and Kansas Time + Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry (The Little Balkins Press, 2017). A sampling of his poems is online at kansaspoets.com. He has self-published two chapbooks: Spring House and Unpaved Roads. He is currently working on his third collection of poetry, Whispers a Splendor Solis.