Richard Wilbur Award-winning Book: Preview 4 (Final)

On Vortex Street

the overhead wires sing and hum

plucked like strings

in tones composed by the vector sum

of the wind’s velocities

but in these resonant meanderings

harmony arpeggios

and all the world’s atrocities

and all the world’s worst-case scenarios

wail in the squalls

as into the maelstrom light curls swirls falls

 

 

 

 

-- Catherine Chandler ("On Vortex Street" was first published in Frostwriting, Issue 12)

An explanation of power lines singing in the wind is available in the second paragraph of this article.