Who Has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
-Christina Rossetti

A poem from my youth that keeps coming to mind as the wind has been definitely “passing by” of late. At upwards of 50mph, passing by! Today we had a program with 6th graders at the Salt Marsh where the wind was blowing so hard that the Silver-Sided Minnows we caught in a seining net were going airborne before we could scoop them out. I wondered if we could have claimed to have caught some Flying fish? So windy, that my hair wouldn’t stay out of my face, so trying to ferret out Fiddler crabs while on my knees, just wasn’t working. Which I am sure was just fine with the crabs.


But it has been beautiful. On another wild day, I kept stopping as I walked around the bog just to watch the wind whipping the clouds over my head with such speed that it looked exactly like those time-lapse films where time is sped up. The wind also burst down on the pond sending waves scattering first one way and then another. Beautiful. It was predominantly a southern wind, making the Cape feel more like the Florida Keys than Cape Cod, saving us all a lot of Airfare while providing the same balmy experience. I always wish I had a plastic palm tree I could drag out for just such days to complete the illusion.

The wind causes a certain amount of amazement in me too. Amazed, as I watch birds that weigh no more than a few ounces, fly directly into the wind and actually make progress. How do they do that? I should Goggle some info on it but at the moment, as usual, I don’t have time. The day I was at Sandy Neck with my granddaughter and we had that hurricane of swallows, flying about 2” over our head, was another day of amazement. Why the wind didn’t blow them into the dunes, into each other, into us, is a true wonder. What Ace pilots they all seem to be- more skilled than Blue Angels.


Yesterday, with Tropical Storm Nicole whipping up the East Coast, I went back to Sandy Neck to see if the waves were huge, if the swallows were still there, and if the Northern Gannets had made their fall arrival yet. No, was the answer to all three questions. No waves (Sandy Neck is on the north side of the Cape, on the Bay, and this storm was coming from the south), no swallows, (which doesn’t really mean they are gone, but they weren’t on the part of the beach I was on. It is 7 miles long, perhaps they were further down) and no Gannets (too soon no doubt, just wishful thinking on my part).
But the wind did make an appearance and it was blowing the sand making white mist out of the air close to the ground and pinging off the top layer of skin on my ankles. And, amazingly, there, floating against the wind, was a small white moth. Incredible, I was nearly being blown over and here this infinitesimal creature was making headway!

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when you’re blown right off your feet,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the minnows fly out of your net,
The wind is passing by!
Pat, with apologies to Ms Rossetti