I can say how did I get here?
I hardly know the way back, still less forward.
Still, if you look for them, there are signs:
Earth stars, rock spleenwort, creeping fig
and English ivy all furled and herded
into the green and cellar wet
of the bottle; well, here they are
here I am a gangling schoolgirl
in the convent library, the April evening outside,
reading the
Aeneid
as the room darkens
to the underworld of the Sixth book-
the Styx, the damned, the pity and
the improvised poetic of imprisoned meanings;
only half aware of the open weave of harbour lights
and my school blouse riding up at the sleeves.
Helen Degen Cohen
LIGHT
We live in a prison, Mirenka .
The one called Adam
said, 'We'll manage - if the world
were lit with a single candle
we would all live by
that
dim light
and the candle? would become the sun.'
But we live in a prison .
When
I'm
free I'll live by
the sun and the moon, n?t this
lonely beam from the outside
they call 'the light of freedom.'
Only, to escape, someone
must open the gate for me, and
