Through

Here we are, half alive,
And there you are, mortal.
We don’t know, when wind roars,

Whether to say it’s more
Like our existence or
Like yours. Nearly static,

We stand in tidy rows,
But we’re also, often,
More often, your whispers,

Rapid pattering, sighs,
And your roars. We’re fingers,
Hands, and arms in mid-air.

We’re poses. We’re whistles.
We’re as you as your scent,
But we’re not molecules,

And while we can be caught
And kept in tidy rows,
We can’t breathe on our own.

All night the wind, which is
Neither itself nor you
Nor us in rows, storms through.