Maybe there is something in the spirit of nature itself that reaches out to nurture those children who are born into the absolute worst of conditions. Maybe it is not just an instinctive will to survive that pulls such newborns through scorn, abuse, and repulsion.
This poem, my 5th villanelle, reflects on the notion that there are spirits within the wilderness, even though it may have been completely “developed” over by man, that reach out and try to protect on some level the nascent sentience of newborn human life when it finds itself festering, neglected and malnourished, in a puddle of terror, neglect, and disease.
Silent Consolements
Vaulting crags called down to one, who cried within the crib,
Squalling shrieks of unmet need that hailed to no avail;
Voiceless hopes were whispered on the rasping desert winds.
Scents from coarsely pillared halls would sooth with subtle kiss;
Lakes like mirrors mimed the stars from vales in mountains tall;
Vaulting crags called down to one, who cried within the crib.
Shadows pooled in pulseless ponds where aimless fancies swim;
Hints of sagebrush shrugged the dark where with a fragrant lull
Voiceless hopes were whispered on the rasping desert winds.
Streams in yawning canyons raced beneath their tufting mists,
Leaping down cascading cliffs, and guarding every fall,
Vaulting crags called down to one, who cried within the crib.
Dawn and dusk each passed in turn with burning pastel drift;
Colors paused on peak and plain where passing all the while
Voiceless hopes were whispered on the rasping desert winds.
Life began in bleak despair, too deep for one to live;
Sorrows crushed a tiny heart, but soundless through the pall,
Vaulting crags called down to one, who cried within the crib—
Voiceless hopes were whispered on the rasping desert winds.
