Two Poems by Susan Dale

Birthday Reflections

Eighteen years east of euphoria
And eight years north of ecstasy
I walk backwards through time
Pounds of prophecies
Lie heavy on my shoulders.
As I journey a somber odyssey
Across the roads of nostalgia
And hear those legions of librettos
I hear too ___ choruses of lullabies and lyres
And the alleluias and requiems
Of those many miles of melodies
That danced my feet
Or blew taps at Reveille.
Timeless music by which
I followed an eternal rhythm
To love, birth, sing, weep.
Leave, lose,
And find again.

Coming to a window etched with time.
I look through the panes
To see all misted over
Regrets frosted in coatings
On the winter pane of my life
        And all gilded over
        With layers of fools' gold.



A Basket of Brotherhood

Weave for me a basket of brotherhood.

For the frame chose a hardy bark of inclusiveness
Within the waters of redemption
Soak long the grasses and stalks
To strip racism from their barks
And to make pliable their fibers of intolerance.

From the promises of our fathers
Weave for me a basket of brotherhood
From the bounty of the human spirit
Web and waft a lattice-work of compassion

Border this basket of your endurance and my hopes
With a rim of unity.
And attach a strong handle
For a long odyssey
Into the trials and tears of our tomorrows

And now to fill the basket with generous portions of wisdom
And the joys that come with peace

And carry this basket I shall
Through the silent prayers
Of mankind's struggles through eternity
Through war torn countries
Through devastation and famine
And through the barren lands
Where naught but hate and greed
Flourish on its blood-stained soil.

Susan Dale's poems and fiction are on WestWard Quarterly, Kind of a Hurricane Press, Ken*Again, Penman Review, Inner Art Journal, Garbanzo, and Linden Avenue.  In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.  She has two published chapbooks on the internet:  Spaces Among Spaces by languageandculture.org and Bending the Spaces of Time by Kind of a Hurricane Press (The Barometric Pressures Authors' Series).