A Poem by Susan Dale

Heartbeat of the World

 

Within a sleep

of the universal dream

dreaming me

I lean out in the darkness

to hear a heartbeat of the world

Listening wide

straining with sinew and soul

I hear flapping wings

Ah, it is the bird of scripture

The Vikings buried him

Remember, with your being,

he under layers of Arctic ice

　

Prophesy decreed

that a shrill brass sun

melt and free his wings

to thrash the skies to raw skin winds

Winds to push across

skies, deeply moving

Winds to push clouds

to gallop through the heavens

Wings talk around winds

But what words tell of winds

gasping with the sounds of dead things washing on shore

Ashes - bones

arteries clogged with oil

Oil - the black blood of our destruction

And in the air, a heavy scent of gone

West winds blow vapors cold on leaves, quivering

on trees with thin chests

and branches reach out in search of embrace

Oh, tired earth of heavy-lidded eyes

dusty clouds - weeping waters

of voices deafened by silence

Our words spoken with fingers

forming the telling

of living to die

existing to endure

We have filled

to fall out of ourselves

and so must we swim to the moon

But what will light our way?

Our shadows lengthening and widening

darken the moon

Souls of stars lie bare

The black V of wings beat the sun to shreds

Winds dip and roar

Yet stir up only pale raindrops

In this hollow rain

stands a girl with broken umbrella

She’s trading her memories

for a withered apple in a faded pocket

Her brother sells his poems

a penny apiece

All begin with the line …

life yearns to live

And end …

life is longing for itself

 

 

 

Susan’s poems and fiction are on Eastown Fiction, Tryst 3, Word Salad, Pens On Fire, Ken *Again, Hackwriters, and Penwood Review. In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.