God's Will Brings Little Comfort Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

I felt you there,
my sweet,
and listened to your heart.
A hurried beat
as if you meant
to speed things up,
arrive in style,
and sooner than the clan suspects.
I loved you long before you could have known.
That little bundle,
still adrift
inside the stoic solitude of what is known
as the Inferior Horn of Gravida,
warm waters of the Amniotic Sea.

And then, that day that all my Gods
ought to accept eternal shame
for letting it proceed,
so cold of heart,
the day arrived,
unbidden in its punctuality,
attired in the crimson rags
of wanton piracy.
Unblinking eye protected under burlap patch
of Stoertebeker's men,
and you just stood
and stared,
as hairy hands reached for your very heart,
their raucous laughter swept their trophy
into the cabin on the bridge,
perched well above
the hostile waters of a lost humanity.

They could not take the love from you,
it is what you have left until the sun's next rise,
when like a tiny fragile flower in its bed by Mother Earth
the wonders of a new and hopeful dream
unfold within the petals of the Amniotic Sea.