Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome New York City poet Dorothy Johnson-Laird with a heartfelt tribute to a mentor, friend and fellow poet, Cenen Moreno, who passed in 2002. “Move into the Light” tells the story of their friendship, how Cenen shared a passion for life and growing, developing things. She nurtured Dorothy’s talent and encouraged her : ‘we went to open mics and I held back/ you nudged me forward, pushing my back gently, firmly/ “go out, go out onto the stage, don’t be afraid.”’ Dorothy is called to Cenen’s bedside in the hospital: “uncertain how to help, so I sat down and listened// as you traveled,/ you saw the ocean, the sun’s sea shimmer,/ the Island of your people – Puerto Rico.” Hearing of her death a few days later, Dorothy returns Cenen’s good will by wishing that her spirit, like those sea shimmers, will “Move into the Light.” Dorothy encourages us to verbalize our feelings to the dead. We do not know what remains after death and what connection we have in our subconscious. Even if they cannot “hear” us, there are things their memories can teach us. Love remains.
Read “Move into the Light” in Synkroniciti’s “Haunting” issue, Vol. 6, No. 4, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Dorothy Johnson-Laird is a poet and social worker who lives in New York City. Dorothy also has a passion for African music. She has published music journalism with http://www.afropop.org and http://www.worldmusiccentral.org. Recent poems appeared in Aji, Cantos, Pomona Valley Review, and Pedestal Magazine, among others. Her poems were also published in the anthology, Alchemy and Miracles: Nature Woven Into Words. She is at work on her first book of poetry.