The Wind with a Hill Approaches

Mornings on bicycles we pedal past a fox

crossing the road, another rushing the vineyard,

then us, watching for nose & ears in the far grass.

Who will make stilts for the boy without a bicycle?

Such wind drives every grape to the end of its stem,

tugs water from the hose, spins the patio fans.

Who will name October’s filly? Pequeña, he says.

Lechita, I say – Little Milk – to make us remember.

A smile, launched by his Buen dia, streams down her face.

One child does standup, a second averts his gaze,

the third, still too young to know Odysseus

sways & rhymes, motions a wine-dark sea.

Lechita, aka Little Milk