Wildness Wins
By Finn Cassidy
The nighttime wilderness of the high-alps,
summits of altitude scrape the face of space,
now face the fury of a summer-night storm
which has already swallowed moon and stars.
This wild landscape and savage sky-scape
are not for the faint- nor warm-hearted.
Neither flinching nor blinking,
a braver, colder-hearted earthling than me
would brazenly outstare
the eye of this storm's unworldly wildness,
standing strong to refuse defeat or submission.
My mortal fear and mountain-refuge
are well and truly gripped
between the piercing teeth
of a merciless, gigantesque alien beast,
unleashing relentless tsunamis of cosmic-chaos
under the cover of darkness,
incessant attacks on earth's exposed extremities
with stern, swift and startling strikes.
Lightning's flashes and forks stun and blind,
while thumping thunder shakes and reverberates,
leaving deafening rains and torturous winds
to disorientate,
disintegrating strong resilience and slender hope
into silent, self-protective self-
surrender.
Deciding dawn displays a new day's kinder winds,
embalming the dead-calm of land- and sky-scape,
an all-comforting, all-conquering space of no escape,
where wildness will always withstand and always wins.
Finn Cassidy
Born in Monaghan, Ireland, he grew up in Clones on the border of
Ireland and Northern Ireland during the 1970s and 80s. Having
studied and worked in corporate Dublin during the 1990s, he chose
a radical life-style change in 2002 when he moved to live in the
rural French-Alps, where he began writing poetry. He still lives in
the High-Alps, where he is currently completing his first full poetry
collection, titled: Notions of Starkology-Codology.
His poems have featured in Poetry Cooperative, Green Ink Poetry
and Sublunary Review.
He works in France as a Corporate English Consultant and lectures
Professional English at PolyAéro Aix-Marseille University.
Photo credit: Layne Lawson
Apricot Press 