A Poem-Song for Spark

Cry

By Caridad Svich

(September 2012)

Lingering light poaches sleep.

Half-forgotten

Is the icy rest

Of yesterday-

Blessed in its descant

Pride-buried,

Holding fast,

Even when holding it down.

Today light shines

Across a meadow

Flanked by flowers

Shorn of breath.

Hazel-eyed swallow,

What’s in your breast?

What song sings you to sleep?

Rest oh child

The soldier says,

Distended from dream’s embrace.

A crippling tune

Of damage done

Surrenders in its wake.

This is how we spend our days

In lightning ache and spark.

In auger’s way,

Some will say

Will sing the bracing lark.

For it cries

Heavenward

Of rain and soot,

Blackened tongues

And blood left drained

On streets

That once were trod upon

With light step

And glinting grace.

Harbor still

The reckoning blast

That shores the one and many

From this dear place

Where we all left space

For the brilliant waste of tyranny

To rise again

Without a care

And outrage on its side.

What happened here? Some will cry

When all is said and done

The wraith of sleep

Will wage sweet war

And tender all its young.

Sorry yet

For those born

On this savaged earth,

Craving much

Where none is made,

Save a holler

Sweet and long.