A Poem by Susan Dale
Winter ringing in high wild notes
Nailed to the earth
Its leaden jaw set until April
Mornings whittled thin
Under a frosty halo sun
Days dripping with snow blossoms
Float in twilight clouds
Faint and pink as infant dreams
Shivering in the wind
Flaring from winter’s nostrils
Bringing in the knobby knees
Of bone-cold nights
With secretive stars
And a slivered, thin-promise moon
Lifting above truth
Rising beyond time
A Poem by Susan Dale
How far must I travel to find you?
Into the oldest rainforest
Where dwell tree spirits since the dawning of time?
Or deep down inside the bowels of earth
Amongst sleeping locusts and a stream of molten lava
Smoldering beneath earth’s crust?
Past bird song and sunset
Beyond twilight into the darkest night
where even owls are quiet and bats fear to fly
Or down clackety-clack tracks
On a ghost train moaning in the night?
Where have you gone?
I fear into the back of beyond
where winds are fashioned and hurricanes die
Where promises are no longer spoken
And footsteps are silent
Black waters rise around you
Higher
And you sink deeper.
A Poem by Susan Dale
Did you stray from your appointed journey?
Or try, but couldn’t?
Or didn’t try
and so walked the path you took
Deemed from birth to be yours
Rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat
sprayed bullet words
Into an open-air cafe amongst chattering women
An assessment of your life
You did your eight,
You womanized,
Left wives, kids
Other wives: other kids
These the words that summarized your life
But didn’t tell of the demons that drove you.
Nor did any know, as did I
The way you walked on the edge
Between sunshine and shadows
Until consumed by the shadows
To be the shadows
That tried, but couldn’t
Or didn’t try
And so were destined to walk the path
Deemed from birth to be yours.
A Poem by Susan Dale
Particles of dance we were
Weaving together hearts and time
Without shackling or commitments
Trailing twilight behind
Riders through the silence of night
We were without nets
Though we were tumbling outside our dimensions
Tambourine rhythms that carried us
Over mirror waters
Reflecting our infant souls riding
A’ front of dark forests
Humming, humming
Winds at our heels
Wings on our shoulders
Past stars falling into galaxies
Within the silence of night did we ride
Our flight from exile
Into a hundred lifetimes
A Poem by Susan Dale
Wrapped in a cocoon of years
Four bare walls and four dark corners
Winter nights long with ceiling lights
Casting shadows
In another room muffled voices
And the sundown houses
I pass
Lights in the windows
Long stretches of highway
a solitary car
behind me
Until it isn’t
Moon puddles in meadows
Decades
quick as bars of melody
Lonely seabird winging over waters
flowing outside of time
In the river a boat-horn cries
In the skies the silent ways of stars
And the sun bleats summer afternoons
stretching out long behind us
Sweeps in a solitude
settling in to stay
A Poem by Susan Dale
The wild wings in some spring
Some yesterday
singing spring
Singing April’s restless winds
I, in pink felt coat
hair caught in wind-wings
Afternoon winds blowing about
the decayed leaves
left from winter’s
white romance
when we were us
A winter of
snow dreams on my windowpanes
I, west on the walk
of steps climbing to the moon
You, east
of thirst to a stream
But when winds screeched rain squalls
and shouted shadows
I remembered your stone heart
stone words
You dwelling on my fickle heart
roaming ways
Came a fugitive moment of grace
half visions in wide scopes
One image leading to another
The gauntlet laid
Could we meet in the middle?
of a chasm of armored stars
Or climb tendrils wrapping
around tomorrow?
But only our eyes met
to see spaces filled with duplicitous lights
Tomorrows on winged flights
So many miles apart
A Poem by Susan Dale
“I want to go outdoors,” she said
We thought she said
Or was it her eyes that said
That spring is the enduring magic of life
We united with fingers entwined
To hold the fairy blossoms
Being waved to earth
With murmurs of breezes
Painted ethereal
By the sun’s gentle kiss
But there is nothing harder to bear than time
Nothing wearier than acceptance
And mom knew____ wide as the skies
Stretched to the seams of the universe
And we knew with tears
In the corners of our eyes
That this would be mom’s last spring
A Poem by Susan Dale
The door you walked out
When you left
Will not close
So is left ajar
And I hear your footsteps
Echo down a long hall
To away
And yet does a faint light linger
Between heart and hall
Glowing like the burning wicks
Of candles
In luminosities
That leap and fall
Alas, melt into yesterdays
When you went back to you