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The Widow of the Wind

A woman who married the wind and tends the silence he left behind like a garden that only grows in dreams.

A woman married to the wind, standing in a field of drifting memories and vanished promises.

She wore nettles and borrowed sleep, married the wind on a Tuesday, and now keeps his coat buttoned with rain.


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The Widow of the Wind
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Lyrics

She wore a veil of nettles
and boots of borrowed sleep
Married the wind one Tuesday
when the sky forgot to weep

No vows were ever spoken—
just a rustle, just a sigh
The priest was made of smoke
and the chapel couldn’t lie

She danced alone at harvest
with a dress of drifting leaves
The wind would kiss her fingers
then vanish through the eaves

She hums into old bottles
then seals them one by one
Sends them down the valley
each marked: “He was the sun.”

At night she lays out blankets
on the roof, beside a broom
And waits for wind to visit
through the hole he left in gloom

Neighbors hear her talking
to the clothesline, to the dust
Once she baked a pie for fog
and served it out of trust

She keeps a coat for wind to wear
and buttons it with rain
Hangs it on a wire hook
that hums the word “again”

Her garden never grows
but bends politely in the breeze
Each stalk a silent eulogy
Each root a small disease

Still, every dawn she lights a match
and places it outside
Just in case her husband’s ghost
has nowhere else to ride


About this song

She married the wind with no vows and no chapel, and now tends her memories like a garden that never grows.


Return to: The Almanac of Impossible Folk