I'm Cleta Joannou

Her Song

Flying brisk from southern climes,
Wing beats swift as heart
Stirring air grown dank and sour
With fresh breezes part.
Fleeing flesh grown disconsolate,
Fleeing home and comfort still,
Wresting from winds their swift power
Northward, flying northward still.
Passing equatorial havens
Alighting not on jungled vines
Lest her progress be truncated
And she reach not the silent pines.
For, accompanied by silence
Whispering loud with baited breath
Come the deeper, soul-wrought strains
That speak of life and sneer at death.
With each wing beat stronger growing
With each stirring thought more clear
With each mile beneath her going
The southern song becomes more dear.

This poem by Dwight S Stone describes
Cleta Joannou and her mindset when she
wrote the wonderful poems in this anthology.