february 4 clear and windy

I saw a dust devil this morning,
doing a dance with veils of cornshucks
in front of an empty farmhouse,
a magical thing, and I remembered
walking the beans in hot midsummer,
how we'd see one swirling toward us
over the field, a spiral of flying leaves
forty or fifty feet high, clear as a glass
of cold water just out of reach,
and we'd drop our hoes and run to catch it,
shouting and laughing, hurdling the beans,
and if one of us was fast enough,
and lucky, he'd run along inside the funnel,
where the air was strangely cool and still,
the soul and center of the thing,
the genie who swirls out of the bottle,
eager to grant one wish to each of us.
I had a hundred thousand wishes then.

~from Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks.
Love the last line.