Tempting Fate

Always there were stones--

the wrath of the gods

unheeded--

the crowds thought we were golden,

the crowds thought we could fly.

Tossing aside the lessons of Icarus

we leapt--invitation accepted,

destiny opened

her great grinding maw

and took us down,

an easy task--

heavy as we were

with the weight of stones.

(Image: Georgio di Chirico, Ariadne, 1913)

The Kindness of Strangers

There it is again

the white spot

on the window glass.

I turn quickly--

nothing--

a flash of sunlight,

a falling leaf

descent slowed

by a cushioning breeze,

the glimpsed underbelly of a sparrow--

or She

who walked here before,

pausing in her travels

to greet overgrown dahlias

or perhaps to clear the weeds

from the base of an old rose

given by her daughter

on a distant mother's day.

(Image: Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Ophelia; 1890)

Medusa














I saw you this morning in the corner of my mirror--
I've learned not to turn too quickly.

Long ago we set the rules--
play the game in peripheral--

friendship maintained

through the custody of the eyes--

First visit I was a child of two

no buried memories or pots to stir--

perhaps faint echoes of a time before

when orphaned in the aether of souls.

Side by side we sat on my cot

four eyes focused on dimity curtained windows--
or was our focus the light shining through?
Later years we flew kites in mud-sogged fields---

eyes always up

as if the sky held the answer

to the question formed

in the crushed heads

of the snake grass underfoot.

Was it fear sent your
focus to heaven?
deferral of death?
This morning I saw you in the corner of my mirror
and I wanted nothing so much as to peer
into your ash grey eyes---
to know you as I have been known.
This morning I saw you and I wondered---
but as ever I've learned
not to look.

(Image: Fiery Medusa, Mimi Yoon)

Identity

It seems I've spent another day
dreaming of the middle distance
distracted by images
of souls end-stopped in stone.
Yesterday in the grocer's
some Galatea lost it over a bag of frozen peas,
her white aura lay shattered
on the floor about her feet. Marble shards
promptly Swept up and
Hidden in her Handbag,
Marble shards presumably ceded
to the sculptor
who sat comfortably at home
like some ancient god
enthroned in an easy chair.


(Philip Scott Johnson;500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art. Music: Bach's Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed by Yo-Yo Ma)

Sylvia

They thought death was worth it, but I
Have a self to recover, a queen.
Is she dead, is she sleeping?
Where has she been,
With her lion-red body, her wings of glass?
(Sylvia Plath, Stings)




The beehive is quiet.
Counterintuitive--you'd
think the thrum and hum
would overwhelm
but each hexagon
has become a realm
of immaculate silence.
The queen lies sleeping,
her drones at her feet,
workers gone off to sip honey
in the hive of the consort.
In the distance a nightingale sings.
The queen almost stirs,
sinks back into lethargy;
sinks back into the counterintuitive quiet
of the hive.

(Image: Maggie Taylor, Girl in a Bee Dress)

Ophelia

Cover her face
let her lie in peace.
When she sleeps let her sleep be
undisturbed by
the lure of memory
or the pull of those ties that
held her to this earth.
If she walks let her walk
unbound by the shadow
of her mourners’ callous tears.

Strew the path to her grave with
rosebuds and lilies,
the endless anticipation
of forsythia.
Lay for her a bed of irony,
lady's mantle, morning glory,
the vanity of narcissus.

Cover her face with mulberry silk
leave her to lie in peace.
When she rises let her rise
unfettered by the promise of an apple seed,
unmoved by the anxiety of ants.
Cover her face Requiescat.
Requiescat in pace.

(Image: Antoine-Auguste-Ernest Hebert, Ophelia. One of the most beautiful Ophelias I have seen. The sorrow in Ophelia's eyes is compelling...where can such sorrow lead but to madness?)

Gacela de la muerte oscura
(Frederico Garcia Lorca)

Quiero dormir el sueño de las manzanas,
alejarme del tumulto de los cementerios.
Quiero dormir el sueño de aquel niño
que quería cortarse el corazón en alta mar.

No quiero que me repitan que los muertos no pierden la sangre:
que la boca podrida sigue pidiendo agua.
No quiero enterarme de los martirios que da la hierba,
ni de la luna con boca de serpiente
que trabaja antes del amanecer.

Quiero dormir un rato,
un rato, un minuto, un siglo;
pero que todos sepan que no he muerto;
que haya un establo de oro en mis labios;
que soy un pequeño amigo del viento Oeste;
que soy la sombra inmensa de mis lágrimas.

Cúbreme por la aurora con un velo,
porque me arrojará puñados de hormigas,
y moja con agua dura mis zapatos
para que resbale la pinza de su alacrán.
Porque quiero dormir el sueño de las manzanas
para aprender un llanto que me limpie de tierra;
porque quiero vivir con aquel niño oscuro
que quería cortarse el corazón en alta mar.






Gacela of the Dark Death















I want to sleep the sleep of apples,
to escape the anxiety of the grave.
I want to sleep the sleep of that boy
who desired nothing
but to thrust his bleeding heart
into the open sea.

Don’t tell me that the dead lose no blood
or that their thirst seeks no respite;
don’t tell me of the torments of the grass
or the doings of the serpentine moon
in the hours before dawn.

I sleep for a while,
a while, a minute, a century;
but you must know
that I am not dead;
that my lips are a stable of gold;
that I am a friend of the west wind
and have been more than the shadow of my tears.

Cover my face at dawn with a veil,
for Dawn will throw handfuls of ants.
Pour living water over my feet
that the scorpion sting of death will pass.
Because I want to sleep the sleep of apples,
to learn the sad song that will free me from this earth.
I want to live like that dark child who desired nothing
but to cut out his heart
and thrust it into the sea.


Some difficulties posed in the translation of this work:
Lines 1-4: "the sleep of apples. Relates to both life and death. Mirrored later in the poem images of the serpent (line 8) and of the nativity (line 13).
"the tumult of cemetaries"....usually perceived as places of calm and quiet.
"the dark boy who wants to cut his heart on the sea"...image of death in the death of the boy balanced by the sea as symbolic of the womb and life.

Line 14: picture of the west wind as a regenerator of life; vernal.

Lines 16-19: How might a veil protect from the ravages of ants? What is the meaning of pouring hard water over shoes?