They blow when they blow, there is no why,
they just do
Sometimes their caress is warm and fragrant,
sometimes it is cold and stinging
Sometimes their strength is such that it can pick you up
and carry you giggling and laughing,
as you fly free as a bird!
Sometimes their strength is such
that it pounds you into the ground relentlessly,
leaving you scrambling for shelter
as you scream into the wind for it to stop.
Sometimes it blows with a pleasing symmetry,
gracefully scything through the wheat fields,
rippling them like a gentle wave.
Sometimes it blows like a circular maelstrom,
a vast hurricane, splintering people
and families into a million shards of despair.
Sometimes it goes away for a long time,
long enough so that we think it is safe
to emerge from ourshelters
to rebuild the scattered debris of our lives.
Then out of nowhere,
The funnel clouds appear, greenish-black
over a flat Kansas plain, swooping down
And menacing us as we drop everything
and run into the root cellar.
Sometimes the wind is our enemy,
sometimes it is our friend.
But it is always there,
whispering softly at times,
a gale-force gnashing, at others.
It has been here before us
and it will be here after we are gone.
All we can do is construct our towers
as a bulwark to protect what we hold dear.
And look over the ramparts,
waiting for the west wind, waiting...

John E. Daley, 1996

A picture is worth a 1000 words

Says more than my words at the moment