A MOUNTAIN LION’S WAIL

I heard the cry of a child deep in the woods.

Some say it is a mountain lion’s wail, a mating call. 

I don’t know and plunge into the underbrush,

Heading towards the desperate sound.

I see an image of a child curled up on a beach, drowned,

abandoned in the woods, trapped beneath a bomb’s debris;

a child whose parents have been deported, whose parents have died;

a child lost, afraid, and starving.

My footsteps rush across the forest floor,

Speeding into what I cannot know or see.

Fear runs behind me; heartache runs ahead of me;

And as I reach the place that I hear,

The sound stops, and I find nothing in the forest gloom;

Not a footprint or a broken branch.

Silence surrounds me as I search among the leaves and vines,

Silence until my voice cries out for those who cannot be found. 

©cmheuer, February, 2017