Protest

by Lori Hershberger

I used to think trees made wind,
the same way clouds make rain,
beating the air with their bony fingers
in a conspiracy of timber to drive the wind
weeping across the drought-pained prairies.
Today the trees are making wind again,
flailing rain-hungry hands through the air,
sending gusts of wailing wind over the land,
and shouting at the stony sky,
“Why, why why?”

Lori Hershberger lives in Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand, where she teaches EFL and dreams of traveling across the Salawin River into Burma. You can find her book, Dustbeams, on Amazon.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy