Bluster
The wind makes of the old fence new percussion,
gates clacking on their hinges, the hedges creak
like springs in an old sofa. All the yard it turns out
can make noise, the rocks finding their voice when
loose branches clatter down. From inside this old
bungalow, easy to imagine Tasmanian swirls of leaf,
cyclones circling perimeter. Wood frame windows
whistle now and then, acting casual, flattering even
in the way of the old school crews, Hey, lady, watch
this, it’s gonna be something. Narcissus waving.
Chryss Yost is the co-editor and book designer at Gunpowder Press and served as Santa Barbara’s Poet Laureate from 2013 to 2015. Her poems have been widely published in various journals, including Prairie Schooner, The Hudson Review, and Askew. She has co-edited numerous anthologies, including California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (with Dana Gioia and Jack Hicks) and To Give Life a Shape: Poems Inspired by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (with David Starkey). She and her husband George Yatchisin share their home with two dogs and a very domesticated house chicken.
