who has seen the wind?

the winter crawls around this exterior
wall, the white snow-
clothed wind plots
like a novel upon on a blank page;
ghostly, animate arises;
writhe tree bones, shake and
shake, so shone the moon down quickening
slake: slanting fall of flake on flake on flake.

this wall's cove wind will not touch,
its haste is for a warmer place, or comes
from that place, i don't know which.
wake up your heads, you nut-lean oak
scrabblers: the wind is not a passing god
here, she but moans, knows
equalities would cease her whipping wrists.

silence is an illness,
stillness a growth of things stable
into wind.

so look out from this hollow,
step into her force, she will touch your face,
send an ache to each bone of it:
an ache for another place,
an ache to be punished, to be tormented
and to torment.
to erase

and leave on the snow such a gentle, gentle trace