Unpacking

A breathless wind hurried past my window

enlisting with it droplets of rain fresh on the sill

It whispered of a foreign land

a desert perhaps, wet with a camel's spit

 the song on the lips of a prayer 

hurled to it from a temple

or the blood of a birthing mother

and the first wail of her child

and maybe the dust from the shoes 

of runner bringing news of fire 

the swirl like cigarette smoke kissing the stars

or the salt of a sea swollen with cruise ships

carrying the rare perfume of a flower 

brought, perhaps, from halfway across the planet

A breathless wind hurried past

leaving me behind