Malekula Island
Splayed wrist to wrist
they rise from the cave wall
to fly who knows where
or nowhere
Finger wings glowing the color of stone
against the charcoal
*
Some say the artists spat out the black
to make a silhouette
around their hands
taste of old fires in their mouths
*
Where did they dream of landing
nothing could be seen from where they stood
no matter where they stood
*
Some say the artists came from one place
some from another
they didn’t make a map of their coming
*
A man who has grown up with their stories
insists these paintings were made by spirits
the ones who have always lived on the island
*
Far from those caves
men are laying new sidewalks
across from a school
Tomorrow small handprints
will take off from the concrete
*
More spirits
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 6.
Susanna Lang’s e-chapbook, Among Other Stones: Conversations with Yves Bonnefoy, was released by Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics in June 2021, and her translation of Baalbek by Nohad Salameh is forthcoming from Atelier du Grand Tétras. Self-Portraits, a chapbook, was published in 2020, and her last full-length collection of poems, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was published in 2017 by Terrapin Books.See all items about Susanna Lang
