Selected Poems
Auroras
i saw ghosts rising
from the minute blades of grass
faint clouds of smoke escaping the green
damp hair of the mother
i saw blood in the water at the early hour
and soft tremors moving us
at dawn
did we foresee the stone-faced prophets,
eyes on the moon
when violets blossomed from their granite teeth and
in their wombs
when the elders ate the air the clouds the sun
and the time of the silent witnesses
had come?
Midnight Visitors
Faraway memories are burning,
consuming my other self:
the one who keeps her eyes closed
and a tight smile through the night.
It is true -
my old lives visit me
when the light is darkest
and the candles have gone out.
If I wake from their voice,
but dawn is distant,
I lay in bed, still hearing
the echoes of their foreign words.
Hypnopompia
There is this song
ancient and dark
cellos and harps
whispers and gasps
it keeps playing
in the still night
it keeps ringing
beyond my dreams
when I can’t move
still in my ears
in this torpor
I cannot grasp
these divine words
that I so fear
and when i turn
it disappears
back to the realm
the supernal
this other world
the eternal
where grow the fruits
men shall not eat
and chime the chords
men shall not hear.
Creta
In the coves and caves of the red mountain / where the wave licks the salty / rock / ebb and flow of shiny blues / where the lost finds refuge / and the enlightened finds rest / eremites of the last ark / erasing the world / seeking beauty over cruelty / in the blindness of the sea / and its perpetual deafening drums
it is an epiphany / in the dark
I couldn’t help but kneel
in the face of the light sunlight red dots in my eyes strobing light tattooing my cheeks
you see when you rest in the shade for so long you forget
so easily
was this a vision feeling everything all of it running through my hands little murmurs i had forgotten
languages i invented when i was a child
i could hear them talk to me at night humming calling my name it stayed with me
you see it was easy then
no angst no clue they visited again later but i no longer knew
the words
and now back under the golden one it all trickled down my tongue
i could just fold them in my arms and tell them that I’m gone
but in the sun it all felt so numb and bleary
suddenly
their voices becoming quiet dusty motes
brushing against me
in the glare of day
Aeilys
Night and silence were their mantle
before we came
dark wells of nothingness
and smoky ethers
we rose with the silver sisters’ dances
out of the seas and still seeds
asleep had we been for so long
and we nursed the sun
fed the spirits
lit the fires
from ashes and songs
while burning embers
marked our mouths
eternally
EMILY SOFALY 