selling the wind

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My sources*
On the Black Sea lies Trebizond,
where black market enchanters ply
fair breezes for a fair price,
so my sources are quick to tell me.
There, sailors in the doldrums,
and other ancient mariners,
roam Turkic streets at dawn,
seek magic Greeks in doorways
for a small pouch of zephyrs,
or better, a knotted cord,
the better to loose a great gale
upon the dormant waves.
Land-bound limeys, too,
idling on the Isle of Man,
my sources are quicker to relate,
get their supply from witches
who, for a small premium,
in defiance of local law,
tap holy wells for a waft waiting,
or an ever tempting tempest.
What, then, for this old salt
an ocean and continent away?
No market here for a draft,
no pushers peddling mythic gusts
down the docks and alleys of this
west coast down town east side.
At best (and at no charge),
a tepid Chinook will grace
my cheek, will goad a glacier
to thaw, then flow.
Not quite what my sources
urge me to desire—
their words kinetic
and blowing through me.
——
*Another one of my sources, The Towers of Trebizond, a novel by Rose Macaulay (1956), which I am currently reading.