Livonia Breeze, by Patrick Gonsior

Crumpled pigeon beneath the pergola

beside the Angela Hospice

behind the Chapel of the Felician Sisters

across the Gunn Branch, across the

interlocking commas carved in concrete on a rotating

planet stood one affixed to a cross. It’s defined as a crucifix,

but I don’t know it as one.

Here knelt Crystal

Here knelt Patrick on a stone hassock

We bowed our heads, crossed our hands

and said together this Catholic prayer:

to the wind

to the wind

that planetary wind

that solar wind

movement of gases

movement of charged particles

to that flow of gases

flow of nitrogen, oxygen

on a large scale

on a rotating planet

to that bulk movement of air

stronger on Neptune

stronger on Saturn

you gust

you squall

you breeze

you gale

you storm

you hurricane

you unborn, unnamed, unconceived child

you Elsie Walters, gray hair, asleep, IV and gurney cradle

How do we classify you

by your spatial scale, by your speed

by the types of forces that cause you

by the regions in which you occur

by your effects— was it the wind that took you Elsie

How do we classify you by that effect

How do we classify that local wind, that prevailing wind

that Mountain breeze

that Valley breeze

that Livonia breeze

where did you have to start

was it the length at which you lasted

was it the eighty-seven years you had

Thunderstorm flows

Heating of land surfaces

Global winds resulting from

the difference in absorption of solar energy

between climate zones on a rotating planet—the differential heating between

the equator and the poles— thermal low circulations

high plateaus can drive our beliefs in abstract nouns

our belief in God.

Livonia breeze

Where did you have to start

to answer our prayers?