A Summons From Numbered Days

Hellenistic Winged Sphinx

Reading Dagmar Nick 

James Hart 

for Jim Barnes 

Reading Dagmar’s
numbered days, and mine,
I become the summoner
of the days’ transparent signs:

here is a whispering sphinx,
aloof, serene, yet watchful,
a voice of sand instead of syrinx,
her polished talons pulling

open the patinated gates
into the empire of our loss,
complacent as salutary fates
summoning us across.



Poem from an unpublished manuscript
entitled Somewhere West of Never.


This poem is indebted to these books:

Numbered Days: Poems. Dagmar Nick (Tr. Jim Barnes).
New Odyssey Poetry Series. Truman State University Press. 1998.

Summons and Signs: Poems. Dagmar Nick (Tr. Jim Barnes).
Chariton Review Press. Truman State University. 1980.