Hélène Cardona: California Poets Part 11, Five Poems

Hélène Cardona

October 20th, 2026

California Poets: Part XI

Hélène Cardona

Five Poems

The Dream of Horses and Flooded Land

Beauty and flow pull in the water.

A leading mare follows

four unknown horses,

surrenders in trust, triumphant.

We’re here to turn our back

on reality, move things

where they need to be.

I’ve learned from eclipses,

sitting by the lake, tears watering seeds

at the edge of wonder and dreaming

violet, swayed by wind

and the Sun harmonics.

The blue Moon says,

I’m the memories of the universe.

Start with the premise all is dark

until two eyes peer from the unseen.

Inquisitive Life

         Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible

                           things before breakfast.

                                                                ―Lewis Carroll

My elfin world

lavish, submerged temple

where amid storms and rainbows

all is forgotten

the ocean heralds

When the colossal wave arises,

the elephant will go on top

of the giraffe, and you will know

to breathe inside the hollow water.

And it happens at the Vernal Equinox

even if it’s hard to believe.

Hélène Cardona, from Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry)

Shaman in Residence

Halfway through the journey

      she finds herself inside the whale,

confined to mull her condition over,

      what led this far,

      what lies behind the baleen,

      what passageway to heed.

Memories transpire on the edge of iodine -

      girl on a swing

      deep blueness of lovers’ embrace

      horses catching fish -

till ocean expels her on the shore,

      diamond pain, weapon and jewel,       

      sea glass licked by the sun.

The way land greets her,

      she enters this sacred

      place called winter, elusive epiphany.

With a different face, liquid language,

      she seeps into sand in search of treasures.

Hélène Cardona, from Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry)

Avalon

           You would not have called to me unless

                         I had been calling to you.

                                      C.S. Lewis, Aslan to Jill in The Silver Chair

So how are things in heaven?

The view is nice

with fairies in the garden.

A rose bears

lines from the Ronsard poem -

Je vous envoie un bouquet que ma main

Vient de trier de ces fleurs épanouies.*

The walnut tree of childhood

grows new branches.

Anna Akhmatova unleashes

all the water locked inside me

and I expand again.

The question creates an elliptic

consciousness, bridges past and present

till my words, Remember

I love you, blossom.

Hélène Cardona, from Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry)

*I send you a wreath of blossoms

And woven flowers by my hand gathered.

Breeze Rider

Every force of nature has a purpose.

        I maintain the planet’s balance.

When people feel I’m here

        they’re lifted.

Traveling through wind

        one reaches places others can’t,

                a matter of quality.

The goal is to let the mind flow

         and not stagnate,

                let it rumble like a river.

If one tries to keep a little piece,

        trophy, illusion,

                the whole is lost.

The mind flows through like wind.

Ride the breeze, lift into it,

        a surprise each time.

Ride the wind drawn from sun

        heating more reflective places.

Hélène Cardona, from Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry)

C'est comme ça

Like a pelagic blue-footed booby

flying through Patagonian rain shadow,

I travel over the fire road

to perch on the rock that bears my spirit.   

In Cusco, Peru, I hold sky in my hands,

enter the Mouth of the Puma

between His teeth, into His head.

Billions of stars vibrate

a rhythmic timeless language.

I hear my mother’s voice echo  

you’re all the sunlight    

that’s ever been in my life.

In my odyssey for a place to rest

I trust I’ll find what I need, 

an ancient sea full of coral reefs,

the promise of new beginnings,

a sanctuary built by God, a spot just for us

with wild geese and boundless reeds.

Hélène Cardona, from Life in Suspension (Salmon Poetry)

Galahad

I took the sword, lay it on the bed

and said, I’m walking away.

Riding horses in the rain, I bless the past.

All dragons, sublime fragments

of life. A chance

encounter in the woods, delicate

potent and violent, the dream

a gift of healing. Oh, I am

Galahad and don’t need to search.

He carries the falcon on his arm

aims straight for the heart, hits

precisely in the center and leaves me

between tears and ecstasy.

I scrutinize waves for answers.

They raise themselves like ghosts.

Dolphins guide me

among whales through incessant

oceans of transformation

Galahad’s eyes reign over me.

Falcon returns and says, fly

with me, let the wind claim you.

Hélène Cardona, from Life in Suspension (Salmon Poetry)

Author Bio:

Hélène Cardona is a multilingual poet and actress whose work explores language, myth, identity, and memory. She is the author of 8 books including the collections Life in Suspension and Dreaming My Animal Selves (both from Salmon Poetry), and the translations The Abduction by Maram Al-Masri (White Pine Press), Birnam Wood by José Manuel Cardona (Salmon Poetry), Beyond Elsewhere by Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac (White Pine Press), Walt Whitman’s Civil War Writings (Whitman et La Guerre de Sécession, University of Iowa), and Ce que nous portons by Dorianne Laux (Éditions du Cygne).

The recipient numerous honors & awards, including the Independent Press Award, an Albertine and FACE Foundation Prize, the iWoman Global Award, and a Hemingway Grant, she holds a Masters in American Literature from the Sorbonne, worked as an interpreter for the Canadian Embassy, and taught at Hamilton College and Loyola Marymount University. She received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut and the Universidad Internacional de Andalucía. Her own work has been translated into 20 languages. She is a member of the Parlement des écrivaines francophones.

The winner of over 20 film awards, Hélène has worked extensively in film & television. Credits include Chocolat, The Hundred-Foot Journey, Star Trek Discovery, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, X-Men: Apocalypse, Happy Feet Two, Muppets Most Wanted, Serendipity, Jurassic World, Emily in Paris, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, Starfield: Shattered Space, and Upload.