Deaf American Poetry: An Anthology

Surely the Phoenix

Loy E. Golladay 129 Surely the Phoenix (In reply to a poem by Felix Kowalewski) You who have hurled your dreams from the highest mountain; You who have lain down dreamless to die— Ruthlessly torn away their clinging fingers, Banished their faces and turned to a dreamless sky: All of you fancies, your bright dream children— O, can you remember how they laughed and played; Light wit on their lips, heart brimming with music, The lovely, laughing ladies—have they been dismayed? The lands afar that beckoned, the temple bells turned silver— Have the bells been strangely silenced, lands sunk beneath the sea, Their splendid cities shattered and the ruined ramparts haunted By a dreamer’s dream that dwindles constantly? You who have hurled your dreams from the highest mountain, And watched their splintering crash to the ground; Did you see all the stars that were torn from their courses? Surely the universe shook at the sound! And the wind-worn stones on a burning wasteland Gave tone to a voiceless, desolate cry, And a mountain cracked and a charnel city Thrust its bones to a blood-red sky. Surely the dreams go on forever, Surely the phoenix arises again! The seed, though purged in the searing ashes, Will raise its face to the singing rain. Loy E. Golladay 130 Nothing begins where nothing ended, All things enter whence all things fly; Surely the dreams go on forever— Only the dreamers die. Die, then they cast away their dreaming, When they scorn the grain in the search for chaff. Then Death sits back in his gloomy cavern To laugh . . . and laugh . . . and laugh. ...