8 poems by Ingrid Swanberg


e i g h t p o e m s by Ingrid Swanberg the horses petals of moonlight fallen softly into the thousand hoofprints everywhere. I had come down here to surrender, riding the white sail blown inward from the window of my birth, the moon shedding petals softly into the hollows. I have come down here to the river with its broken cargo, the dark blood unfurled, a silver dollar in my pocket and my feet in the black mud of spring. I was trailing the shadows of the horses thrown by the light below the night you were born neon, phosphor flowered blue and pink on the wet streets it was raining in the beautiful darkness for a moment headlights cut into the depth of the pines without disturbing their sleep but continuing to pour soundlessly filling with long needles of rain dark summer wind swells the deep green sail in your absence the mast towers and gleams the hiss of the moon on my shoulder dark summer wind fills the dark sail we drift the night spume snow may I be thin and cold as the first snow fallen late and silent in the secret night sub rosa unhappy flower of august, flower of the black field, unable to speak the perfume of your desolation bloomed in the fullness, summer overgone the cicada in his tower burns with the terrible light; sweet cricket pulse in the pure undertone the angel of the train having already passed the hour, its sooty gloriole . . . . pale orphan of silence untouched, alone among the deep shades of the afternoon his name snow falling from dark to dark darkening the trees on one side someone stands in the clearing in the gathering whiteness where the path curves faint fire or bells white ceremonial robe thickly feathered in snow he turns and looks at me a long time what was hidden in the quotidian brightness braided here with bread, stars, his dark eyes a long time snow falling from dark to dark he turns and looks at me again powder blues for Fred Dalkey this far north there is an early morning light already crumbled into gold and softly thrown over the chicory thriving along the rails their blue rises unassailable closed by noon it is the blue of those small butterflies nectaring upon lupin or sipping at the mud of some clear stream there in the west where the light is always young spearfish canyon within the cataract of light the heart grown numb sheer bridal veil falls shy of the dry creek bed there are traces of the old flume on the canyon wall an eagle loops and disappears into the high rim's shadow the tall pines are dying out dry grasses stand amid young spruces farther along the path the open carcass of a doe mixes with the sun and deep in the canyon the tamed water glides quiet over greening moss. the last gold leaving the aspens descends These poems have previously appeared or will appear in the poetry journals Abraxas and Osiris. Copyright © 2001 by Ingrid Swanberg Light and Dust Anthology of Poetry