BIO
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Hélène Cardona is a poet, linguist, literary translator and actress (Chocolat, X-Men: Days of Future Past). She is the author of Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry, 2013), winner of the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Best Bilingual Poetry Book, The Astonished Universe (Red Hen, 2006), and Life in Suspension (Salmon Poetry, 2016). She taught at Hamilton College and Loyola Marymount University, and translated for the Canadian Embassy and NEA. Hélène received a Master’s in American Literature from the Sorbonne and fellowships from the Goethe-Institut and the Universidad Internacional de Andalucía. She is on the Editorial Board of Levure Littéraire and co-editor of Dublin Poetry Review. She’s widely published in numerous journals and anthologies, notably Washington Square, World Literature Today, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Warwick Review, The Dublin Review of Books, Recours au Poème, The Irish Literary Times, Periódico de Poesía, and Poetry International.
In Search of Benevolent Immortality
Believe what I see, Mars signaling
the Moon, harmonic
map, not what the mind tells me.
My mother gave up so much.
I try to mend broken pieces
of connection, let light flicker
into the sheltered past. We packed
whole lives into bundles in search
of what chooses us, what wants to come
back to the surface, what needs to be said.
We had so many dreams
we didn’t know what to make of them.
And so with leopard’s ears
I hear beyond the range of sound
the ineffable, the sublime, my mother’s
breath, grandmother’s smile, ancestors’
voices, to soothe and heal the sorrow.
Eagle
.On the wall of time to come,
A window appears.
.
I open it, let angels in.
.
The vortex in his eye
Spins me out of myself,
Infinity held in blue iris,
Closes around me,
.
Snatches me in Eagle form,
Resurrects old scars,
Absorbs space and love,
Blossoms into divine silence.
.
The universe cannot resist
A poet like him.
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