Villanelle to the Manatee

Villanelle Poem By Anne C. Gruner Gruner

This poem is from our writer series challenge, Meet the Villanelle Poem. To view our upcoming stories & poems, please visit our publishing schedule calendar.

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Do not go gentle into that dark sea,
so filled with toxic waste and algal bloom.
Rage against the dying of the manatee.

The precious sea cow has nowhere to flee,
with death of sea grass nothing to consume.
Do not go gentle into that dark sea.

The flows from farms create calamity
by nourishing the algae driving doom.
Rage against the dying of the manatee.

These gentle giants have no enemy
but humans, who over them careless zoom.
Do not go gentle into that dark sea.

Mistaken mermaids, lacking vanity,
for more than sixty million years they boomed.
Rage against the dying of the manatee.

Now floating weakly, robbed of dignity,
their passing will stir the greatest gloom.
Do not go gentle into that dark sea.
Rage against the dying of the manatee.

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Anne Gruner's poetry has appeared in "Beltway Poetry Quarterly," "Plum Tree Tavern," "Humans of the World," "Jalmurra," "Written Tales," "Spillwords," "Superpresent Magazine," "Old Mountain Press" and anthologies, and is forthcoming in "The Bamboo Hut."