Wind by C.Dale Young

But I was afraid then. I remember still
the way my feet skittered up the bamboo,
the way the air held me as the stalks bent
one way and then the other. I remember
the first steps across the tops of trees,
and then the all-consuming speed.
Unlike you, I was lit by anger then,
the least of all warriors. You were there
when the old man first found me, taught me
how to become water. And so much has passed.
River, air, everything passes. They say
the first time you give yourself up to the wind,
there shall be no fear. But I was afraid.
Yesterday, I watched one of my students
scale the bamboo for the first time.
His hands shook only when he returned
to the ground. Now, he wants to know
how to change the wind, this boy
who has only just learned to be carried by it.
Do not laugh. I remember you in the field
so long ago, your fear, your stillness,
the supreme weapon. And I remember you
stripped of your clothes washing the blood
from your feet—you, who keep my heart
in your rooms. Now, the old man says
I cannot move forward until I learn to forget,
that to become wind is to forget even this body.
I have been water propelled across the fields
from the edge of the riverbank. I have been fire
licking back the scrub outside the sad-faced grove.
But this, this final step ... Do not laugh.
Mornings, after you study the indentation
I have left beside you on the mat, when you
walk the bamboo line between field and grove,
do not be angry with me for leaving. Look up.
The wind in the trees betrays more than the wind.