Today, I am deeply honoured to welcome back one of the most prolific, talented and graciously human thinkers of our time: poet, singer/songwriter, playwright and political journalist, editor, and activist, Sandy Leonvest.

In some distant hinterland,
where the dream 
still moves in circles,
and the snake never dies,
and courts of angels 
play reluctant witness 
to time’s merciless whims,
the Nightingale 
surrenders her song
to a darkening sky;

Her flightless wings
lay under the Willow,
where remnants
of Light
disappear 
into the skin
of a withering sphere,
leaving behind 
a scattering of dust
and microcosmic particles,
which splinter on contact
into infinite versions 
of parallel worlds,
before returning
to ashes and bones.

Back in the city,
the streets go dark,
triggering colorful chains
of collapsing constellations,
strange and unseemly alliances,
and the collective unravelling
of obsolete institutions,
amid the collective eclipse
of empires.

This brings about
an excitement of stars,
all rushing to change shape 
amid mass evacuations,
cascading galaxies, 
and the emptying
of earthly planes,
their lengthening shadows,
leaving trails of dust
in their stead,

which causes
the dead,
who turn restive and grey,
to abandon their posts,
bewildered and distraught
at the random nature
of the unfolding order,
and, quite possibly,
disheartened
by the abdication
of stars.

And time,
unmoved by the specter
of its own passing,
retains no memory
of itself,
so shrugs nonchalantly,
confusing heaven with hell,
giving rise to rumors
of unspeakable endings
and the lowering of flags,
amid the arrant unravelling
of everything …

and the sweltering heat,
passes in waves of indifference
thru dense city walls,
leaving traces of Truth
(if truth there be)
and fragments
of time forgotten
to linger like orphans
between the cracks.

And Love
alone waits
for light to return,
her dream of tomorrow
circling the sun,

a lonely satellite,
cold as a stranger
growing old
in a starless sky

~Sandy LeonVest has, over the course of her writing career, been a poet, playwright, singer-songwriter, political journalist – radio and print – and the editor/publisher of SolarTimes (solartimes.org), a groundbreaking energy publication and newspaper distributed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area from 2006 through 2013. Today she spends most of her time writing poetry and fiction, which she believes was “who she meant to be all along.” Sandy’s poems capture the spirit of the 21st century, with all of its circularities and contradictions – fathomless beauty and incomprehensible ugliness; infinite joy and endless grieving; and the inevitability of “the ever-spinning circle.” Sorrowful endings followed by new beginnings. Her poetic voice seems to channel the poets of long ago, at once emanating from another era, yet echoing universal and timeless themes.

*Title image is a wall painting from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, 79AD.