The Lullaby’s Fable from the Half-Forgotten Dream
First, the mist brightens.
The lullaby is missing its magic glow
of fireflies, its wild fable,
its wonder.
The breath empties,
sheer kindness replaces the rainbow’s arc
above dove-grey clouds.
My lungs confuse grief with love.
My jade prayers murmur till sunrise.
Life.
Lost.
Loss.
I burn the roots and see joy,
a heart-shaped swath of blue
in the space between clouds.
Valerie Bacharach is a member of Carlow University's Madwomen in the Attic poetry workshops. She has had poems published in Voices from the Attic and in several other journals including the Jewish Literary Journal and Pittsburgh City Paper's "Chapter and Verse." Two poems will be published in Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing. She conducts weekly poetry workshops with the women of Power House, a halfway house for women in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.
