Digital art by Lew Holzman
He’d lost, you see, and run away
to the woods west of Winnipesaukee,
and run as mist pressed chill upon
damp fallen leaves and incomplete fairy rings
and run beside mottled pines where birds
and squirrels fled from his mournful cries.
He found a rock locked in the lake
and sat there as the sun, it set,
red into the misty mercury of the lake
rimmed by black velvet shore and put
his face in his hands and wept.
The white Moon rose quite regally
in jeweled gown of midnight blue
and he lifted his face to Her mou`thed O,
what on the Earth so grieves this one?
He heard Her voice with nearby sound
of kitten cry he startled at, alert, recalled,
upon his feet and found an infant
cuddled in cloth half-buried in soft
needled pines, and lifted it against his chest
for warmth to feel the pounding there and ran
toward memory of the light of town.
It was a long time in the dark and longer strides
of tired legs and fearful thought of the baby
dying in his arms for want of speed,
and he ran knowing how desperate was
this moment and helpless child in the cold
and hungry night, and then he sensed he did not run
alone but was pursued by wolves who can smell fear
and failure in their prey and so must cut them down
to strengthen those who still will run.
He soothed the baby with steady strides
and rocking motion of his arms. There was the hard
flat surface of a road ahead and lights,
a car – he cried aloud and then it slowed,
taking them faster than any youth could run
to town and hospital. He sat in a room alone
waiting word, and policemen came to tell him
who he’d saved and how the parents wanted
to thank him so. He left before they found him
and ran the roads home to his mother’s house
where she awaited him though sleeping on the couch.
She wakened and said, “I heard you lost the race.”
“Yes,” he said. And, “It’s all right.” “I know,” she said.
And good night both went to their beds under that October’s moon.
Smoky Quartz 