Poem: ‘If I Could Only’ | Cassandra Voices

Poem: ‘If I Could Only’

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If I Could Only

I dream of roses blooming in the sky,
of boys with guns, of body parts slung
over broken toys in some unholy rite.
And through mind-searing noise, I hear
the  wail of mothers keening for their young.
I dream of hell.

But when dawn breaks,
I wake to find that, silently,
a veil of snow has fallen in the night.
No severed limbs,
no sightless, disembodied faces.
Just snow.
Its cooling calm fills all the small, slight
spaces where, yesterday, deep shadows
seized the waning light.

No bombs. No blood.
Here every twig is dressed in vestal white;
and even while the cold-eyed, brooding
dawn still dawdles into day, the sky is bright
with snow, caught by its primal purity –
the indrawn hush.
This lustrous, arcane alchemy:
the mint-ness of a clean-wiped slate.
It seems a consecration, soft as
the laying on of hands. It bears the grace
of prayer – an urgent dream for respite
everywhere.

If I could only catch it up, reach out
and gather in this white of new-washed
sheets, flung over fields and trees;
garner it in, then loose it on the scorching,
hope-burned world. Stifle the fires and guns,
the screaming drones. Re-write the
countless stolen, rubbled lives.

If I could only soothe this quenching
silence over all the weeping and the
wounds; make real this gift of new
beginning. Of absolution.
This unflawed state of grace.
If I could only.

Feature Image: Francesco Goya, Y son fieras (And they are fierce or And they fight like wild beasts), c. 1810.

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About Author

Lorely Forrester was born in Kenya then raised in the Caribbean, later graduating from King’s, London where she worked in documentaries and magazines. Moving her young family to Ireland, she is now an Irish Citizen living in Co. Sligo where she was Editor of Discover Sligo Magazine for many years. Her poem, ‘Planting Peonies’ won 1st Prize at Westport’s 49th International Arts & Literary Festival, Westival 2024. Another poem was listed for Kilmore Quay International Literary Festival Poetry Prize 2024 and some of her work was published alongside an Editor’s review in The Galway Review online in Dec 2024 (also now in print). She has also been published in Mediterranean Poetry, The Galway Review (on several earlier occasions) and The High Window.

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