TRANSCRIPT

I’m Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

One February years ago, after days of single-digit temperatures and Nor’easters and tunneling paths to my car through chest high snows and icy gusts, I brought up an image to warm myself. In a month, I would lounge beachside under blue skies with a drink in hand. 

But our snow bird adventure turned into… endless boardgames in a rented condo. My family and I watched rains lash the sliding glass doors and balconies. On the final day of our Florida vacation, the sun finally appeared—but not for long. Clouds formed into a dishwater grey monster and roiled up the coast of Melbourne Beach. 

It woke me from a satisfying snooze, expecting sunlight to steadily wash my face. My son was searching for sand dollars. My wife warned, firmly, “Let’s go. That storm will be here any minute.” In denial, I didn’t want to leave my folding chair; I stared at the storm’s underbelly and thought we’ve at least another half hour. 

Then, the wind picked up. Everyone below umbrellas packed furiously. I grabbed our cooler. Thunder cracked the air. My wife called to my son; he kicked up sand, running. We barely made it inside. A sudden microburst blasted white plastic furniture into the air. Umbrellas cartwheeled down the beach. Someone’s dog floated for a second. 

That moment was not allegorical — the wind’s force was real on our bodies and belongings. During moments of political crises, I think of wind, how conflicts arise and unfold. Today’s poem, written some 17 centuries ago, effectuates a storm. In the very structure of its sentences, the poem enacts the motion of a mighty gust and its aftermath — a murmuring calm and quiet that claims our being.

Wind Poem
by Song Yu, translated by Chloe Garcia Roberts

The wind is born in the earth. It rises up from the tips of the green rushes, charges 
wildly into river valleys, and rages across the mouths of hollows. It ascends the 
foothills of Mount Tai, dances underneath the pine and cypress trees, drifting to and 
fro, roaring in torrents. Surging up in blaze of anger, it rumbles thunderously, then 
blunders, protesting, back to its cave. It tumbles rocks and fells trees, killing new 
shoots as well as forests. Until at last it weakens, leaving behind a mess of wrecked 
beauty. It blows across empty spaces and rattles doors; turns dazzling light into 
diffused radiance. It leaves, it wrecks, it turns, it shifts. It’s this fresh cool hero wind 
that blows everything, makes it rise and fall. It scales high walls. It enters into the 
depths of the palace. Flowers and leaves in the garden are shaken by its breath. It 
paces between the bay and the pepper trees. It soars over the surging surface of the 
water, shudders the perfume from the lotus, routs the orchids and the grasses, 
scatters the wild ginger, bruises the magnolia, and strips the twigs from the willow. 
Returning to its lair it rushes out revived, then later loiters in the courtyard, blows 
North towards the imperial palace, climbs the gauze curtains, and breezes into the 
inner chambers. This is why we call it the great king’s wind.

"Wind Poem" by Song Yu, translated by Chloe Garcia Roberts, from TAKE A WALK WITH THE WIND © 2025 by Xiong Liang, translated by Chloe Garcia Roberts. Used by permission of Elsewhere Editions, an imprint of Archipelago Books.