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1. Is it really National Big Wind Day? Or is this another bit of ‘Orkney News’ kidology?
   Very fitting for the weather here today.
   For if it is NBWD – here’s something

   After years of faffing about – or that could be farting about, we had a small multi-fuel stove installed. We love it, for many reasons, but one big reason is………it’s a real thing. It’s solid, iron. It works by moving some knobs about. There’s a knob to ‘riddle’ the ashes so they drop into the tray. There’s a knob to open the flue to the chimney, there’s another knob to regulate the flow of air through to the fire itself. It doesn’t rely on batteries or electricity. And….we have to use our senses, and our minds to make it work. We don’t just flick a switch, and get instant heat, light, etc. The stove means that a person has to pay attention, set it properly, regulate the flow, keep an eye on it.
   In a world of ever-increasing gadgets which mean that folk don’t need to use their minds or their senses because everything is done for them, this little stove makes you work a bit for what you want.
   On the decorative side – the chimney reflects things, it reflects light, either artificial or sunlight, and reflects the things on the wall behind it. The whole thing looks cosy even when it’s not lit.
   And, The Wind People cavort in the chimney – we can hear them, and if I put my hand on the side of the chimney, I can feel them moving about in there.
   The hearth is made of local stone, smoothed and oiled, and when the sun shines on it, you can still see the patterns in the stone.
   So, that’s our stove – a real thing in an increasingly un-real world.
   And here’s a poem to The Wind People, by Fred Turner of the University of Dallas – he’s google-able.

   The Wind People by Fred Turner

   Their faces are the skeins of air that we
   sometimes perceive to finger across a flag or sheet;
   their bodies, that which fills a tree
   when it is wrought by their possession, throws
   about its limbs as if distraught.

   And they are like the catspaws of the fire,
   and they are simple-minded in their time;
   often their quarrels by coincidence
   catch in the splinters of a human fate
   and pull us willy-nilly to the grave or flame.

   Lovers, quite often, capture by mistake
   within a kiss, a wind-person by the hem
   and then the breath that each one breathes
   is the trapped and unknowing spirit of another being.
   It’s this that scares a lover oftentime.

   The wind people inhabit wars and shores.
   It’s they who form the whistle of the shell,
   for they are fascinated by all forms of spirals
   and love to lie along the horns of shells.
   They’re angered, though, by bangs and bells.

   Especially in Fall the wind people come by.
   They think that we are only swifter forms of trees. To them
   the tender flesh of thigh and breast is hard as stone.
   In these last months
   I’ve become not much different from they.

   A year ago I felt a ticking in my eye
   whenever wind was round.
   Investigating this phenomenon I found
   A veil of colors in the air so faint it was
   Not so much sight as sound.

   At first I could not tell the boundary
   Between one windperson and another. Now
   I’ve even named them, though their names are secret.
   I wondered whether they had anything to do with prayer:
   But they come neither out of heaven nor hell.

   –And now I know their shapes in whirling sand;
   I’ve grown to recognize their smell
   (like hills of bitter snow) and see
   in turns of my own madness their many-fingered hand
   weaving their versions of eternity.

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2. It really is National big wind day Bernie, however I doubt it was referring to the type of wind the poem was about. It is also apparently National Licorice day also. Thank you for the poem, i love reading peoples take on their environment.

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