Secrets of the Windy Night

A draft causes a door to click shut, and another to open. I hear the leaves of the mulberry flutter and know they flash with moonlight. Dried leaves are skittering and the first acorns of the season clattering on the roof. A wind-moved branch scrapes the rain gutter, emitting a metallic groan. I watch the drapes billow into the room. Although the night air is warm, it chills me. An emptiness ages old seizes my mind, and I think the hollow space within the bellying cloth the void itself, making its presence, or absence, known. There are moments when I feel as though I could enter there and absorb it into myself. All nothingness in my grip, I could blow out the cinder of what has seemed real, and become dark serenity. But the stubborn drape resists my hand. I continue to believe them both solid objects. The shape collapses into the falling silence. My hand I use to scratch what I think to be an itch.