From
The Heart With Grace
Wind,
who yearns to be savored, offers
me
three cups overflowing
with
eternity, daemon of insight.
The
opportune encounter enraptures quintessential
distress,
ruffles estranged quietude,
kindles
a jeu d'esprit, glückliche Reise,
propels
the fervent fragrance
of
heliotrope, hyacinth and honeysuckle.
The
tremulous hibiscus taunts me to warm climates,
reminds
me I remain a thistle, resilient,
rooted
in Mediterranean Celtic fringe.
Do
you remember a language older
than
time, when a shiver down my mother's
spine
was worth a thousand words
and
the melancholy in my father's eyes,
reflecting
Lake Geneva, was indecipherable?
There
unbeknownst to me
in
a world inhabited by swans,
I
too swim in concentric circles
to
find the resonance of my core
and
discover that in dreaming
lies
the healing of earth. In dreaming
we
travel to a place where all is forgiven.
In
dreaming is the Divine created.
And
the great Oneness whispers ex-voto,
I
am centaur by any other name,
I
am griffin by any other name,
I
am mermaid by any other name,
my
raison d'être insubstantial, chameleon,
excavated
like a talisman from wreckage,
resplendent
fresco catapulted
Beyond
whimsical metamorphic frontiers.
Dancing
The Dream
This is a story of flight,
a story of roots,
a story of grace.
I am the wandering child.
Every journey knows a secret destination.
I'll find my way without a map, rely
on memory embedded in my mother's embrace
on stormy nights at the foot of the Alps.
I'll find home in the heart
of a rose, retrieve my soul,
anchored in the still point
where psyche rests,
the presence of mystery so luminous
I'm infused with its essence.
I walk the labyrinth, let
go of confined desires.
I rip the vine intertwined around
the umbilical, liberate the letters of
my name. They soar above the ocean
for the falcon to reclaim.
I’m dancing the dream
on
the brink of barren ravaged realms.
From volcanic pumice and pure clay
I reap scrumptious blossoms of love,
earth’s sweet and savory ambrosia.
Shaman
In Residence
Halfway
through the journey
she finds herself inside the whale,
confined
to mull her condition over,
what led this far,
what lies behind the baleen,
what passageway to heed.
Memories
transpire on the edge of iodine -
girl on a swing
deep blueness of lovers’ embrace
horses catching fish -
till
ocean expels her on the shore,
diamond pain, weapon and jewel,
sea glass licked by the sun.
The
way land greets her,
she enters this sacred
place called winter, elusive epiphany.
With
a different face, liquid language,
she seeps into sand in search of
treasures.
Hélène
Cardona
Hélène Cardona is the author of seven books, most
recently the award-winning Dreaming My Animal Selves and Life in Suspension,
and the translations Birnam Wood (José Manuel Cardona), Beyond Elsewhere
(Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac), winner of a Hemingway Grant, Ce que nous portons
(Dorianne Laux), and Walt Whitman’s Civil War Writings for WhitmanWeb. She
wrote her thesis on Henry James for her Masters in American Literature from the
Sorbonne, taught at Hamilton College and Loyola Marymount University, and
worked as an interpreter for the Canadian Embassy in Paris. She received
fellowships from the Goethe-Institut and the Universidad Internacional de
Andalucía. Her work has been translated into 16 languages.