Shape of the Wind
Now, I take up the task I was born to find,
here, where the light says nothing about tomorrow.
How happily I lose myself in a sea of higher being
until the rivers become my hands
and the mountain of my body lifts itself to pierce the clouds.
I have fallen in love with a secret even the mouse knows,
and the slow tortoise munching the grass:
this world wasn’t born to sorrow.
It is a song made real in the rising of a thousand voices.
We are kites that in our dancing reveal the shape of the wind.
Doubt drops easily from my shoulders now,
a ragged cloak I was taught to wear that no longer fits me.
Naked as pure light, I whisper my smile to the stars.
May everyone who sees me
recognize their soul.
Alfred Fournier is a writer and community volunteer in Phoenix, Arizona. His poems and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Indianapolis Review, Hole in the Head Review, The Sunlight Press, Delmarva Review, New Flash Fiction Review and elsewhere. Poetry publications include A Summons on the Wind (2023, Kelsay Books) and King of Beers (2025, Rinky Dink Press). He lives in the foothills of South Mountain with his wife and daughter and two birdwatching cats.
Amethyst Review 