One Superb Poem by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

The Crossing 

 

In a year of uncertainty and rush to judgment

I question the validity of midnights

and other deadlines I must cross

Bridges are meant

for joining two worlds

for comings and goings

for making that connection…

but you can't live your Life in suspension

or deny the Source    it's flow

 

If you want to make a real connection

consider your neighbour opposite you

and extend yourself

You can build a bridge on just one breath

if your spirit is strong and true.

 

You and I without words

are already in conversation

You and I are more than

water under the bridge

 

In a year of shifting currents   and torturous turns–

I am a river   And everything

that comes and goes

that rises and falls

that turns and returns

moves inside of me

I travel with the sun

and by the light of the moon

who wanders like a gypsy

along the riverbanks of her mind

while I hold the Mirror

 

I am water   blessed with healing   thicker than blood    

and in communion with all things

I talk with the birds and the wind in the trees

and the heavens reflected above

I sing myself into oceans

and dance on clouds in the valleys below

 

You and I without words

are deep in conversation

We meet in the flow–

between the rising and falling of each breath.

In the flow–

between the rising and falling of rain

In one drop of water…after it falls…

before it drops away…at the still-point–

where all things are reflected

In that moment of transcendence   where

everything still is moving and

everything moving is still

Even Time   as it ripples across your face

and dissolves    as in a mist or in a dream

 

In a year of uncertainty and rush to judgment

I turn to you    In you

I long to see my own reflection–

my one true face that waits for me

in a place beyond my longing

In you

I long to hear my one true voice

that carries with it   

all the ancient voices

all the streams of consciousness

who have passed this way before–

my mother’s mother my father’s father–

all who have carried me here to you

 

In a year of uncertainty and rush to judgment

I am my own defining moment

moving forward with the certainty

that I am not the same person I was an hour ago

My heart is a river    And   like a river

I cannot enter myself in the same way twice

I carry your river in mine–one heartbeat at a time.

This is the kiss at midnight

this is the moment that counts--

my mouth as wide as the sky

my heart a vessel emptying into an Unseen Universe

 

I am a river

and I make this crossing… with you

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary world by the legendary James Meary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few.  his death, it was his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, who took an interest in her writing and encouraged her to publish.  A nominee for the Pushcart Prize and a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence.  Her collected poems On the Way to Invisible is forthcoming in 2022.