I am the wind

As John Daniels said, most of Evelyn's pieces were written in a poetry class, which I believe was in the mid-1930's. During this general period she suffered the deaths of her only sister and her mother, and a heart condition that ended her dancing career. Without specific dates on each poem, it is not possible to discern which ones were written in response to these land mark events in her life.

Changeling

Once, when I dance,

I am the wind,

Blowing whitecaps on blue waters

Or hurtling sailboats

Toward the sun.

Again, I am the rain,

Pulling prismed light from cloud-bursts

And arching its flame.

But when I unite in myself

The wind and the rain,

I drag the sanded shores

With my body,

Crushing all life.

Trees cringe from my breath,

And oceans swell and break.

Destruction is the echo

Of my ecstacy.

Evelyn Coffey

Above this poem were these words:

“Some people work at verse-making while others are born with that delicate golden gift. I shall read from the work of Miss Evelyn Coffey, whom we all consider to be an inspired poet. This is the poem which recently won the first prize in a contest sponsored by the Cleveland College Writers Club:”