Hélène Cardona

Dancing the Dream

This is a story of flight,
a story of roots,
a story of grace.
I am the wandering child.
Every journey knows a secret destination.
I'll find my way without a map, rely
on memory embedded in my mother's embrace
on stormy nights at the foot of the Alps.
I'll find home in the heart
of a rose, retrieve my soul,
anchored in the still point
where psyche rests,
the presence of mystery so luminous
I'm infused with its essence.
I walk the labyrinth, let
go of confined desires.
I rip the vine intertwined around
the umbilical, liberate the letters of
my name. They soar above the ocean       
for the falcon to reclaim.
I’m dancing the dream
on the brink of barren ravaged realms.
From volcanic pumice and pure clay
I reap scrumptious blossoms of love,
earth’s sweet and savory ambrosia.


From Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry, 2013)




Peregrine Pantoum

Begin with a dream,
snowcapped mountains and rivers of salmon.
Green rays cleave the heart of winter
dancing at the edge of the lake.

Snowcapped mountains and rivers of salmon
echo laughter and lilac sonatas
dancing at the edge of the lake.
Fairy tales beckoning days on end

echo laughter and lilac sonatas,
my grandmother’s exquisite designs.
Fairy tales beckoning days on end,
wisdom and melancholy build fires,

my grandmother’s exquisite designs
engineered by elves. I sleep with fervor.
Wisdom and melancholy build fires,
myriad books and soulful dwellings

engineered by elves. I sleep with fervor
on slippery roads, frozen paths.
Myriad books, soulful dwellings,
enchanted forests ripen with children’s riddles.

Slippery roads, frozen paths
drive mazes of mind.
Enchanted forests ripen with children’s riddles,
exiles and travels, forced and chosen.

Driving mazes of mind,
tales of torture ring from the land of gods,
exiles and travels, forced and chosen.
Sirens and magic flutes ablaze,

Tales of torture ring from the land of gods.
Green rays cleave the heart of winter,
Sirens and magic flutes ablaze.
Begin with a dream.

From Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry, 2013),
first published in Barnwood Mag





Hélène Cardona is a poet, literary translator and actress, author of Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry, 2013), winner of the Pinnacle Book Award and the 2014 Readers’ Favorite Award, The Astonished Universe (Red Hen Press, 2006), Life in Suspension (Salmon Poetry, 2016), and Ce que nous portons (Éditions du Cygne, 2014), her translation of What We Carry by Dorianne Laux. She holds a Master’s in English & American Literature from the Sorbonne, taught at Hamilton College and LMU, and received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut & the Universidad Internacional de Andalucía. She is Chief Executive Editor of Dublin Poetry Review and Levure Littéraire, and Managing Editor of Fulcrum. Publications include Washington Square, World Literature Today, Poetry International, The Warwick Review, Irish Literary Times, and many more.