By Hélène Cardona
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.
