A Windstorm in the Forest begins by depicting the wind as a maternal figure. As if tending to children, “the winds go to every tree, fingering every leaf and branch and furrowed bole … [seeking] and [finding] them all, caressing them tenderly, bending them in lusty exercise, stimulating their growth, plucking off a leaf or limb as required” (55). The trees resemble infants who are reliant on their mothers to make them strong, living symbiotically with the wind; the trees eventually reap cool shade, clean oxygen and protection for the soil below in return for the winds’ breezes.
