Sarabande

Sarabande

By Norma Cole b. 1945 Norma Cole
“and then looks at
the stars” from the
bed in the ambulance
 
looks up at boughs of
trees shifting quickly
lit in blackness
 
blackening soft, deep
siren’s song—she died
several times that night
 
and only in the weeks
to come started and
started to come back
 
then forward which is
real life

Norma Cole, "Sarabande" from Where Shadows Will, City Lights Spotlight No. 1. Copyright © 2009 by Norma Cole.  Reprinted by permission of City Lights Books.

Source: Where Shadows Will (City Lights Books, 2009)

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Poet Norma Cole b. 1945

POET’S REGION U.S., Western

Subjects Living, The Body, Nature, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Arts & Sciences, Theater & Dance, Language & Linguistics

Poetic Terms Free Verse

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Biography

Norma Cole is a poet, painter, and translator. She was born in Toronto, Canada, and attended the University of Toronto for her BA in Modern Languages and MA in French. Her translation works include Danielle Collobert’s Journals (1989), Anne Portugal’s Nude (2001), and Fouad Gabriel Naffah’s The Spirit God and the Properities Of Nitrogen (2004). She has also edited and translated Crosscut Universe: Writing on Writing from France . . .

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SUBJECT Living, The Body, Nature, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Arts & Sciences, Theater & Dance, Language & Linguistics

POET’S REGION U.S., Western

Poetic Terms Free Verse

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Originally appeared in Poetry magazine.

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