Drifted Sand

The wind, careless in its airy freedom, Feverishly furrows the prairie grass. With a cry like a lost spirit, it winds And wails through leafless trees and toothless fence To vent its eager force upon the boards Of a lonely, weather-beaten farmhouse. Afternoon sun shines ashen and mottled, In slim slanting shafts, through a smoky pane, Opaquely painting a penumbral room. Dust motes dance before an empty stone hearth. A man, like a silent sentinel, sits Dreamless, and loveless, between the bare walls. Wearily wringing his wrinkled thin hands, He sloughs his solitary years away, Staring sleeplike out an open screen door Where stands a windmill, in still-life, framed. Tumbleweeds pile against the west house wall; And a plough lies broken in drifted sand.