Voice of the Wind
Young Timothy Dellman was cut at the neck
As the pirates with cutlasses boarded the deck.
The battle went poorly for HMS Fraught
For her sails were all torn and her rudder was shot.
Poor Timothy swam while the ship sank behind
With a flag ‘round his neck for his knife wound to bind.
He swam hard for a shore he had seen from the mast
’Til half dead and all bloody he touched sand at last.
Those were uncharted waters where Tim lost his crew
And the island he found was no island he knew.
While he drifted near death in the dark on the shore
He had dreams that the wind blew more strange than before.
A breeze whispered soft through his wet matted hair
Then a sound like a cyclone tore down through the air.
A deep roaring gust swept just over his head
And he opened his eyes to see if he was dead.
He saw twenty strange faces there all staring down.
Some were wide-eyed with wonder while some wore a frown.
Weakly Tim tried to speak but his neck gave a wheeze
And the islanders smiled at his voice like a breeze.
Then the islanders opened their mouths for a shout
But the sound of the wind was the noise that came out.
For their voices were air and their speech was the breeze
And they thought Tim was wordless, returned from the seas.
To their home in the trees they led Tim by the hand
Where they fed him and cleansed him of blood and of sand.
But his voice never healed where the cutlass had skinned
So he learned to commune with the voice of the wind.
Soon he met a young woman who spoke with a breeze
And her name was the rush of the air through the trees.
She saw Tim and she loved him and he felt the same
And they joined hands together with hearts all aflame.
He built her a house out of palms and bamboo
While the islanders smiled that their love was so true.
Then the weeks turned to months filled with pure wordless joy
Until one summer night she gave birth to a boy.
The men and the women all gathered to see
The islander newborn on Timothy’s knee.
But in fear they stepped back and their eyes opened wide
When the baby first squeaked and then gurgled, then cried.
Then the face of the mother herself fell aghast
And from two dozen mouths flowed two dozen cold blasts.
Fearful Timothy shivered and no longer grinned
For the voice of the babe sounded not like the wind.
Then the islanders reached out their hands for the child
All believing it gruesome, inhuman and wild.
But Timothy knew he himself was at fault
So he ran with his son, warding off the assault.
Behind him rushed out his poor lover’s sad call;
She was pleading, confused and not angry at all.
But Tim knew returning meant death for the child
So he leapt in the sea, putting hope in the wild.
The island folk doubted that Tim had survived,
But he made way to England, and there his son thrived.
Now all sailors who hear a wind howl off that shore
Hear the calls of a mother who waits evermore.
