Moaning and whining, keening and sighing,
the wind man parts the sedge with invisible shoes,
pursuing the dying souls across the fens.

Each winter he comes, scouring the ice,
gathering in Anglia's sons,
taking them back to a steppe Valhalla
to warm themselves before a homelike, peaty fire.

On this, a late journey in the early Spring
he took my father home;
but only his body.
His mind had already gone,
slipping into the oozy fens,
chuckling uglily
as the wind man searched the reeds above.