‘The Wise Lady of the Valley Paisco’ (poem)

‘The Wise Lady of the Valley Paisco’

She lived in the paradise of a hidden Alpine valley,

The year of our lord nineteen thirty-three.
Although a slight grandmother in her fifties,
Her wisdom was as tall as the surrounding evergreen trees.

Locals would travel, even through rain or ice,
To seek out the wise lady Teresa, for folk medicine or advice.
Stubborn in her ancient mountain folkways,
Her kind is almost unheard of nowadays.

Always draped around her neck, an ancient rune,
Was she a daughter of the lamb, or of the moon?
How could her remedies so often be true,
Not a village soul had even a clue.

Local legend has it that every several months or so, at about noontide,
Teresa would depart in a carriage moving eastward across the mountainside.
And eventually during these sojourns, with sacred staff in hand,
She made the trek up a rugged Valtelline mountaintop, with a suchlike band.

As they all stood along a steep ominous mountain pass, as twilight came about with sundown,

Amid a dark blue sky, the sun’s dimming rays turning these rocky cliffs a mystical golden brown.
Soon the orange globe of the Almother moon arose majestically over the highest cloud or peak,
The ancient rite would now begin in all its mystique.

Our clan hitherto had left this land for opportunities anew,

In a very faraway place, we started to renew.
Still, I feel sadness that we were never to return,
To visit great grandmother Teresa, I regret our adjourn.

May we meet someday my favorite ancestor, in spirit anew,

Your son thinking of and proud to be from you.

--Camunlynx

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