A Face in the Wind

A Poem and a Photographical Series by Luke Nelson

3/3/2022

A man walks out of the forest and into the town.

He is plain, unremarkable,

A face like any other.

But as he walks through this town,

People stop in their tracks.

They begin quaking,

Screaming, 

Crying,

Laughing,

Smiling.

They are frozen,

Overwhelmed by a myriad of contradictory emotions

Seizing their hearts and pummeling their minds.

The man meets a woman in the middle of the town square.

Her reaction is just as visceral,

But it is far more internal.

It lies, hidden within her frame.

She says to the man,

“Who are you? 

What have you done?”

He responds,

“I am you,

And you are me.

I am everything,

And I am nothing.

I am a face in the wind,

And a whisper in the trees.

I am a million years of greed,

And a thousand years of hope.

I am chaos,

And I am quiet.

I am this,

And I am that.

I show you all that you know,

But everything you choose to ignore.

I am a truth, 

And I am a lie.

But I wear my heart on my sleeve.”

With that,

The man continued walking,

And the townsfolk watched him go,

A mixture of fear and happiness in their eyes.

Eventually,

The man reached the edge of the town,

Where the woods sat waiting,

And he disappeared within,

Never to be seen again.

The townspeople never forgot that day,

The horrific and beautiful things they saw. 

They spread the word,

And they told of the vision,

Adamant in what they knew.

As the town’s tale spread across the world,

True believers began to wait for the man,

Patiently,

Eagerly,

Endlessly,

And hopelessly.

They drifted through bars

And hills 

And brothels

And tunnels

And buildings

And ceaseless stretches of highway.

Some claimed to have seen him,

But none,

Not even the original townspeople,

Could recall his features.

He was nothing but a mirage in their minds,

A faceless figure of distortion.

He was a silhouette on the wet pavement of a morning after the rain.

He was the tumbling clouds painted upon the brilliant blue sky.

He was a face in the wind,

And a whisper in the trees.

He was everything,

And he was nothing.

He was the thought,

And he was the word.

He was all that is.

And he wore his heart on his sleeve.