Double Prize Recognition for Paul Sutherland

Dream Catcher editor Paul Sutherland's poems, Red Candle Holder recently came second in the 2008 English Association Poetry competition while Infant Land was named best poem published in the prestigious Nassau Review during 2008.  We are delighted to reprint both poems here.

Red Candle Holder

Our bedroom candle holder’s
blackened around its tinny socket;
we’ve given up chipping off the wax
clinging in layers like gloss remnants.
To carry it to our bed the shallow dish
extends an incomplete ring as a handle
not big enough for a man’s curled finger
but still too expansive for a child’s.

Many mornings we’ve seen the thing
spent, as a gift that no one can use,
and reeking. But don’t close the drapes.
Now it’s settled on our white window sill
against blind glass, let it be a reflection
because it can never speak for itself.

Paul Sutherland

*

Infant Land

Somewhere out of range
giant shoulder hills rest
crystalline in flames ofsnow,
dark-jade ocean unfurls a tonnage of foam,
naked sandbars cringe; elsewhere freezing fog
glazes two lit-up ships,one bound for port, 
the other toward open water.

In an ash bordered field, through
patches of sun, around cut-down trunks
pallid bushes are on fire with green buds.
I follow close my young guide’s
lead through hollows
and over broken mounds.

Just outside his walled city,
a newness blooms. A future
rises from the past. Once buried 
under wreckage and toxins
guarded saplings burst
outcast earth breathes, befriended.

We soldier on, picking up debris
a burning wind throws against
his infant land.

Paul Sutherland