New Poetry by Karen May

Dreaming in Music

I wake sometimes

to a dream of music

the notes play

and laugh in the dark

and just for a moment

let themselves be read

like clear and shining words

lined up along the stave 

like the sudden illumination

of a foreign tongue.

But then the score elides

and their keening begins.

What is it that they grieve

as I drift between

the land of words

and music’s seas? 

Do they sing

elegies for wisdom

laments for learning

a grim coda to virtuosity? 

Do they cry

of the blue dance of the depths

stilled, last chords 

fading, words failing? 

Do they sing and sing

of all the light

that might have been.

- Karen May 2019

Karen May writes poetry, sometimes combined with art practice. She grew up in remote areas of Australia and has worked in universities, NGOs and Canadian foreign affairs. For a long while now she has lived in the Southern Tablelands and Canberra.