It starts as a rising breeze. Pleasant and teasing at first, the harbinger of change and reinvention. Flattering your skin with endless caress and flirtation, promises of muse and inspiration.

Then slowly it grows. It fills in its own unrestrained impetuousness, unchecked by the landscape, unscathed by the hills. It is amplified by the slopes and the valleys, funnelled by the shapes and the contours of the land, and encouraged by the flat expanse of the sea.

Then it maddens, it waves and it twists, it whistles and it blows, fiercely and tumultuously, uncaring of the damage it may wreak in its wake. It pushes and it shoves, savagely bullying everything in its path.

With each howling gust of unashamed power, it raises debris and dust, swirling towering clouds of uprooted litter, mercilessly spewed all around.

It paints vague horizons, whipping up water, erasing distinction between sea and overlying sky. It greys out the blues, effectively merging them to its careless delight.

And on land it sets everything in motion, nothing sits still. It combs through forests and kicks hard at the sands. It rushes around rocky outcrops, playing its high pitched songs. It sets mast cables on yachts viciously vibrating, frantically ticking in anticipation of quieter conditions. It screams furious V sounds on electric wiring and bends branches and trees in its chosen direction.

But no matter how strong, no matter it’s fury, it will eventually calm, it will soon blow itself out. After all its huffing and puffing it will always tire, until slowly, very gradually, almost imperceptibly, perfect silence and complete calm is restored.