Wrack Winds......

It is almost impossible to describe the winds on the High Plains.  They are ever present, no day is perfectly calm.  Some days they flirt about, toppling a chair or moving errant scraps of paper along their journeys.  Other days the wind is very much alive.  Seemingly self aware, it coils around your legs, pressing with force against your body.  It has a deep throaty sound and has weight that pushes back against your chest, eager to capture your own breath.  It roars through the landscape, scraping the earth, throwing up clouds of sand and grit.  The tumbleweeds are helpless in its grasp, sailing and floating to land miles from their birth.

The wind is vicious, tearing at your hair, tugging your clothing, desperate to have your attention.  There is no ignoring it.  There is no pretending it isn't there.  It howls defiantly, crowing it's territory, laying the few courageous flowers  sideways, and giving trees a permanent sculptured image.
The wind flows through the smallest cracks and holes.  It breaks from being the large entity and fingers it's way into the most secure of homes with small puffs of the whole.  The dust is dropped with glee around the tightest windows.
Birds have learned to hunker down, deep into the strongest of the plants they can find.  Those that venture out are clutched and tossed, their only hope is to stay low.  I am sure that birds pray on days like this.  I am sure they ask their Maker for  safe passage, for a passing of the terrible beast that claims their skies.
Even now, it has knocked over well supported garden structures, it has moved metal objects, it has relocated pounds and pounds of topsoil.  It is still angry, I can still here is groan and mutter.
But I am safe within my walls, and when I crouch and go forth, I hold tightly to my son's hand, urging him to keep his eyes closed.  I stand against the wind, but only long enough to find safety, not unlike the birds.
It is a beast.  It has a voice.  And there is none that can slay it.