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When the Wind Blows
Richard Eric Johnson

walk or run
behind my back
in my face

dries my sweat
frosts my eyebrows
pushes and pulls

spreads the pollen
moves the snow
foretells a storm

thus it must be
the wind all soul
blows me away

—
Richard ‘Eric’ Johnson is a graduate of Indiana University and holds a B.A. in Germanic Languages and an M.S. in Education. Eric has five previously published volumes of poetry: Of Museums, Monsoons, and Mausoleums (1988), Schemes of Consciousness (2003), Memoir Poetics of a Naked Cop (2013), Watching Angels Dance by Candlelight (2019), and Free Air Berlin: Of a Wall and Walnut Tree (2022). His poetry has appeared in numerous online and print journals.

Eric served in Viet Nam and West Berlin with the U.S. Army before beginning a career in law enforcement as a road patrol officer with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department in Indianapolis. After retiring, Eric traveled overseas with his wife who was likewise stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army. They now reside in Arlington, Virginia.

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