Silent In Forest Poem by Frank Bana

Set on my hands the gift of silence
Lift the pressure and pain of my hips
Trace your ice on my aching shoulders
Then draw the heat from my frozen lips

For I have abandoned myself to wandering
Too far from quiet places, the evergreen
Where swords were drawn by malevolent spirits
And my scars carved by the night, unseen

You found my scraps of despairing verses
The prints and knee-shaped hollows I left
Fearful, you searched the earth untrodden
Insisting no pain could be expressed

The music has fled from my songs, my verses
Are stripped of their words, I bite down on stone
My hands by your fingers are bound to be emptied
Of all gifts of silence, until I atone

My rags were stripped, weeping, from my body
As I lay abandoned, hearing the leaves fall
I cover my limbs with comforting fragments
Awaiting the light that Dawn will recall.