'March Day: Windy' by Charles Bruce

Verse for the new month by Charles Bruce, the pride of Port Shoreham, Nova Scotia. 'March Day: Windy' is one of twenty-four poems collected in The Mulgrave Road (Toronto: Macmillan, 1951), winner of the 1951 Governor General's Award for Poetry.

MARCH DAY: WIND

         This day you wonder, finding nowhere quite

         What you expect to find. The strident air

         Surrounds you like a sea of sweeping light;

         The hills and fields return you stare for stare 

         Humpbacked and grim, the giant juniper

         Bows down to scowl; across the crawling grass

         Beyond, where the twin Balm o' Gileads were,

         Two strangers halt and stiffen as you pass. 

         Something is altered here. The difference

         Between you and the blowing world is thinned.

         You turn to face the house, and common sense,

         And see a woman shouldering the wind. 

         Turn to the barn, and see an old man leaning,

         Intent to hear those droning syllables—

         Those phrases harsh and high, and wild with meaning.

         Of shouted sound from granite-throated hills.

Related post:

'March, 1918' by H.C. Mason