HÉLÈNE CARDONA
The Magician
Good night, the mellifluous whisper
catches me like a vine,
wraps itself around my will.
I stare at violet eyes,
unanswered prayer,
key to the music room.
I slip out of mind,
sucked into the flower fairy.
I become a dream.
The snowcapped mountains blend
into clouds, brushed by wind like whitened
sand, haunted Indian landscape,
hypnotic, soothsayer, all
the faces buried there, sculpted
alive, shape shifting, urging
me, remember who you are,
step outside of time,
choose to feed the white wolf.
I lie in darkness
engulfed by angels' music,
intoxicated with lavender.
All is light and legend.
I sink deeper, circle higher
until I don't exist.
Inside tears after rain,
dawn arises, rays
of light flood my wings.
Mist and pain dissolve, I burst
into joy melting down all expectations.
Strange and unusual every circumstance.
The Magician home, I know
my structure remains intact
and refuses to budge.
Thank everyone and everything I’m still here.
The Devil so sweet, I welcome change.
The clock untangled,
at the bottom of the dry slope
cobra, wolf and coyote greet me:
I’m reborn into a Peruvian horse.
Hélène Cardona is a poet, actor and dream analyst. She is the author of the bilingual poetry collections Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry, 2013), The Astonished Universe (Red Hen Press, 2006), and Life in Suspension (Tupelo Press, 2014). She taught at Hamilton College and Loyola Marymount University, and translated for the Canadian Embassy and the NEA. She holds a Master’s in American Literature from the Sorbonne and received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut and the University of Baeza, Andalusia.