Vox Populi
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Margo Berdeshevsky: Beyond My Used-up Words
Keening with the fallen.
And that is not enough.
Then how will I sleep or write of herons?
Tides, torn in an angry sea’s claw. Stilled
flesh whitening
where the wild orchid rises and withers,
her tiny many mouths along a single stalk—
a chorus — all its stilled children
call for any god to reach them.
Breaths stopped — no murmurs left —
and that is not enough.
~
When I see you, my breath tears
there between your bodies.
If I say
what I know of plenty and of empty,
how will I sleep, or dream of herons?
Leaps cut down
curled— used— on the bright,
of road blood stilled in its breeze.
Be
safe this day,
friends, don’t curl
and don’t be killed
not this day, not after. There will be
cold wakings when your fist will haunt all
sleep. When the dun silence will leave.
I mean to see you
if ever I cannot stand.
This side of the new-born stream
there’s no blood yet.
But let our cry
carry.
Infant, in its clairvoyant’s caul.
Let our knowing— bleed.
How can we sleep, or write of the fallen?
I am without skin
today.
Your drum— deeper, and going deeper in.
And that is not enough.
There is a place where the wing tears.
And there is a day when the heron stands.
And there is a river for revolution
—the hardest love, coming in.
Bring me to the river where lives begin, where
our nakedness needs no skin, bring me to
where it begins and begins. Nameless. And coming in.
At the end of the beginnings, we dress in long light—
a hybrid body of stars— River, where the parched
heart drinks her fill,
hill where the unborn
climb.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Margo Berdeshevsky, born in New York City, lives and writes in Paris. Her most recent collection is Kneel Said the Night (a hybrid book in half-notes) from Sundress Publications. Her collection Before The Drought was a finalist for the National Poetry Series.
From Before The Drought (Glass Lyre Press, 2017). Reprinted in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
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Thank you, a second reading and another and another. Still finding new ways it reaches me
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The energy of this poem shades into prophecy. “This side of the new-born stream/ there’s no blood yet” is terribly aware of our present. Thank you for focusing my spirit today, when it would rather be distracted and ungrounded.
And thank you to Michael as always for Vox Populi.
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Thank you, Richard. The poem works associatively, like a dream, rather than logically like a story or argument. I find it very moving.
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A “cri du coeur” indeed — which I translate as “heart-cry” to “heart-scream”…
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An intense stream of images and feelings…
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“And there is a river for revolution
—the hardest love, coming in.”
And still:
“Keening with the fallen.
And that is not enough.” 💔
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I always plan to wait to read Vox Populi until after my online meditation. But then I cheat and then know I will return to savor or question when there is no deadline. Thank you for first read. I will return.
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Thank you so very much! to Michael Simms for publishing this dear to my heart poem of mine, (a cri du coeur for the falling in these our terrible days of wars..) .with care, margo
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It’s a great poem, Margo: compassionate, imaginative and lyrical. Thank you!
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