Metaphors of Life Journal: The Howling Wind and a Solitary Feather

RANDOM ACT OF METAPHOR

The Howling Wind and a Solitary Feather

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind. ~
Lewis Mumford, American Sociologist, 1895 - 1990

Hmmm, if I tossed a solitary feather into a random gust of this howling wind, how far might it twist and turn, swirl and curl, spin and spiral before it settled to the ground?

Perhaps, passed along from one gust to the next, it would travel countless miles in an endless journey of chance. Hour by hour climbing higher and ever higher in the wind funnel until, at last, it tickles the undersides of cloudbanks in distant places I will never see.

It might, perchance, catch warm thermals and soar with Golden Eagles. Sashay down, down, down to settle momentarily in the crater of a slumbering volcano. Then, swept up again, follow the course of mighty rivers that wind their way to the sea.

I imagine it becoming one with the wind. Once a mere passenger but now the incontrovertible proof that the wind itself exists. The wind the sole and willing means by which it stays aloft.

The howling wind and a solitary feather – a random act of metaphor for love itself. The perfect, effortless symbiosis and the freedom to ever be so.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.comor the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

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