Theodora Goss: Poems

The Wildflower Garden
by Theodora Goss

There is a bee
busy
in the purple tuft of the knapweed,
perfectly happy —
like me, actually,
hidden among the Queen Anne’s lace
and goldenrod, sitting and therefore
as small as a child, pretending
there is nothing beyond this — the forest
of knapweed and Queen Anne’s lace
and goldenrod, that the rest of the world
does not exist — just this secret grove
of sunshine and steady buzzing,
these stalks towering above me
arrayed in gold and white and purple,
with the bees and I
and a random butterfly
its only inhabitants
forever.

(The image is Dans la Prairie by Claude Monet.)

The People Who Keep to the Paths
by Theodora Goss

There are people in Kensington Gardens
who keep to the paths, walking
straight, one foot in front of the other,
like soldiers, upright, respectable.
They are all, I am certain, very good people.
I, on the other hand, struck out
across the field, under the linden trees,
not from any sense of rebellion
or non-conformity, no, simply
to feel the grass about my ankles
and smell, falling from the leafy canopy
above, like a scented rain, like a benediction,
a storm of linen flowers.

(The image is Under the Linden by Anton Hansch.)

Evening Song
by Theodora Goss

Lady, take me in your arms
as my mother used to do,
and let us sail together
in a boat for just us two
upon the stormy seas — but you can
calm them with a word
and whisper to the clouds above
that scuttle like a startled dove
until the always-constant moon
shines through.

Then let us travel far away
to lands beyond the ones I know,
Constantinople and Cathay,
to where the serpent bites his tail
and golden apples grow
upon an island where three girls,
their hair bound up in ropes of pearls,
dance underneath the trees,
and Zephyr blows
an apple-scented breeze.

There, I will curtsy as I learned
from my mother long ago,
and they will curtsy back to me
while Zephyrus will bow.
They will offer me a single bite
as sweetly sour as love,
which I will taste with rare delight
beneath the brightly-shining moon
that gazes down so curiously
from among the stars above.

You will start to sing an ancient song
that my mother used to sing,
and you and me and the damsels three
will dance in a ring,
and the moon will start to harmonize,
and the golden apples will chime
like the clock on my dresser telling me
Wake up, wake up, it’s time.

The image is The Garden of the Hesperides by Edward Burne-Jones.)

The World After
by Theodora Goss

After the last airplane has flown,
the last car stands idle on the empty highways,
the lights have gone out in all the high-rises,
the traders no longer call on the floor of the bourse,
teenagers no longer parade the latest fashions,
mothers no longer wheel their prams in the public parks,
and the lights on all the cell towers have winked out,
a pair of ducks will still be winging their way
north to their nesting grounds . . .

As they did when steamships puffed from London to Calcutta,
or triremes hugged the Mediterranean coast,
or the first clever ape figured out that sticks float
and told his friends about this incredible discovery,
while his wife showed their baby how, in the sky above,
the wild ducks were winging their way north
as they always had.

(The image is Two Ducks and the Moon by Ohara Koson.)

Bridget
by Theodora Goss

Bridget is walking beneath the trees
because spring has come.
The small birds flying around her head
burst into song.

As she passes, the roses bloom,
the pink dog roses that nod and sway
as the wind brings the scent of the sea
blowing this way.

Around her hem the children dance,
holding hands in a ring,
as wild and glad and innocent
as lambs in spring.

Bridget, my lovely,
your head is perpetually
crowned with woodland flowers:
bluebells, foxgloves, and columbines,
primroses, cowslips, the dusky velvet
of violets, white stars of anemones
and sunny celandines,
bobbing their blossoms around your sweet face
as you walk through the world while the small birds sing
and the children dance in a laughing ring
because you are the spirit of wonderful spring,
gone too soon but always returning
when we most long for you,
albeit too briefly,
Bridget.

(The image is The Coming of Bride by John Duncan.)

Thoughts in the Roman Baths
by Theodora Goss

In the city of Aqua Sulis, presided over
by Minerva of the Waters, in a corner,
carved into stone predating the Roman city,
are three mysterious figures, a triple deity,
the goddess of the Celts, whose names we no longer
remember. But what the archaeologists tell us
is that she was worshiped, or rather they (being triple),
throughout the Celtic lands from time immemorial,
until the Roman goddess strode in, Minerva,
as arrogant, in her armor, as any centurion,
and took the city for her own. Oh Minerva!
You are such a child beside these ancient figures,
as ancient as the Fates, who predate Zeus.
Perhaps they are the Fates themselves, who formed
the earth and set it floating on the waters
of Night, which bubble up in the blessed springs
in which we bathe ourselves, worshiping the goddess
Minerva Sulis, forgetting that they come
from her, originally, the triple goddess
whose names we have forgotten, yet who holds
our lives in her capable hands from our watery births
until our deaths, and to whose endless streams
we will return, slipping out of our bodies
and into her immensity like fish . . .

(The image is my photograph of the Celtic Triple Goddess at Aqua Sulis.)

Little English Houses
by Theodora Goss

Little English houses,
red and white, white and red.
Somewhere a good child
is laying her head
on a linen pillow,
and hollyhocks bloom
all across the linen,
all around her room,
climbing up the wallpaper
so that she sleeps
in a secret garden,
a secret English garden,
while out the window,
in the garden below,
hollyhocks are growing,
red and white, white and red,
all around the houses,
the little English houses
sleeping in the sunshine,
dreaming in the sunshine,
as in the room above,
softly, gently, deeply,
dreaming of a garden
with hollyhock and roses,
red and white hollyhocks,
roses striped red and white,
smiling as she dreams
of a secret garden,
the little girl sleeps.

(The image is Flowering Hollyhocks by George Baxter.)