MY HOMES IN LEMURIA

~A Lemurian Ballad~


Unroll your map, my artist friend
And spread it ‘cross the table
I’ll point you where my wild paths wend
Through myth and tale and fable

I’ll trace you where those lay lines lie
With the ghosts of my footsteps strewn
Where secret sarns run under the sky
With the power to drink down the moon

I’ll plot you a plan of this land of dream
Between Ithaka and the stars
Where triumphs, fears and feelings stream
Yours, and mine and ours

Where a woman will weave a door
On a mystery threaded loom
Where no opening was before
Step through and begin to bloom

And where do I dwell in this magic land
Twixt tomorrow and the sea?
It all depends on supply and demand
Of the fluid being called me

* * * * * * * *

Deep in the Dryad Wood lives a tree
Who trembles in earth’s sacred trance
The Lady will set her dreaming heart free
In Joy she will take up the dance

My body is still and smoldered with pain
But here in this land of expanse
On a hill where the moonlight pours like champagne
My sylvan spirit joins in the dance

So here’s my first home, the deeps of the wood
In a clear, crystal, drinkable breeze
Where dancing and roots are both understood
By the hushed quiet knowing of trees

* * * * * * * *

In a cool green glen where the ivy grows
By the banks of a bubbling stream
Embraced by vines and a wild white rose
Is another piece of the dream

Inside a little cottage is a bright lyric fire
And a harp strung with vision and rhyme
Its metaphoric music can inflame and inspire
Its echo is sometimes sublime

As twilight softens the Lemurian skies
And dusk whispers still through the glen
By the window’s a woman with unfocused eyes
A paper, a smile and a pen

* * * * * * * *

When the Lemurian moon is in the sky
Mirrored in circles on water below
Like a silent, sweet synchronistic sigh
I’ll somehow always know


For a piece of my spirit is always here
In this spot where I first came to rest
Through the bloomings and turnings of the year
Where the waters are hallowed and blessed

* * * * * * * *

An apartment in the city, yes!
“Lemurian Towers” top floor
There you’ll find my urban address
With it’s authentic Art Deco decor

Big closets for all my evening gowns
Of a hundred rainbow hues
And stacked up neatly on the ground
Are my faithful scarlet shoes

I stay here during the season
When the “Lemurian Players” play
Each performance an excellent reason
To come up to the city and stay

Come by for cocktails before the play
Bring whomever you’d like to invite
Apris-play is another soiree
We’ll discuss late into the night

My butler would never open the door
To something as sordid as pain
So all day museums I’ll search and explore
Then I’ll go out to the Theatre again!

* * * * * * * *

Some see the desert as wasteland
An empty, barren zone
But in strong red rock and coral sand
Is the heart of my blood and bone

The song of a desert born dryad
I bring with me into this place
And the vision of this sacred triad:
Splendor and starkness and space

Where the mountains flush like wine
And dip to kiss the salmon sand
Quest and question become entwined
With a need to understand

My Lemurian desert will age
Ancient, authentic, concrete
Red rocks and sweet, silver sage
A healing, still spirit retreat

* * * * * * * *

A part of my heart is wild as wind
Effervescent as rainbow bathed fountains
A cold breath of breeze where the air is thinned
In the highland Lemurian Mountains

Meditation and mystery with myth are twined
The cry of wild swans seeking clues
A secret sanctuary blooms in my mind
The full, giving heart of the Muse

Hallowed alchemy is created here
And the warming fire it brings
Creative courage replaces fear
The stone artist wakes and sings

* * * * * * * *

From Poetry Cottage to Dryad Wood
Mountain Mystery and Desert Retreat
Water Garden and City Neighborhood
The paths of my wandering feet . . .

A home on every spoke of the wheel?
Well, this I can tell from the start
Oft said makes a saying no less real
And home is a place in the heart

A true land of wishes, Lemuria gives
Each Lemurian just what they need
Each dream is a place where somebody lives
Each hope is a real estate deed

The truth of my Lemurian home exists
In a muted blue river’s flood
The path the runs beneath my wrists
And the source of that pumping blood


©Edwina Peterson Cross

As magic melts into mundane?
Is a miracle something that cries?
As it rusts in a workaday rain?

Do creative sparks rip the sky,
If they fall to the cold ground unused?
Do dreams scream when they die,
When the dreaming’s been bruised and abused?

What is the sound when Art dies?
Can you hear a soul wasting disease?
Can you hear breath and bone turn slowly to stone?
Can you hear when a heart starts to freeze?

What is the sound when Art dies?
Can’t we hear with a pin-point acumen
The sound of a massive demise
If humanity kills what is human?

©Edwina Peterson Cross