The Snow
by Theodora Goss
Listen: The snow is falling
with a whisper to the ground,
and it settles on the grasses
like a cold white shawl.
What do you think it whispers?
Just such a silent sound
as white cats make when passing
with white footfall.
(The image is White Cat by M.C. Escher.)
Rumpelstiltskin
by Theodora Goss
The little man
tore himself in two.
What did the two halves do
after that?
Fairy folk don’t die
from such simple operations.
And no, they didn’t hop about,
each on a single leg.
Each half was a complete
facsimile of the original,
except that one was reversed:
a mirror image of the other.
One was left-handed, the other right.
The two halves stared at each other.
Brother, said one,
I shall go into the forest:
I’m done with humanity.
Let miller’s daughters ever after
suffer the consequences of their own folly.
I shall live alone, with only the birds and squirrels,
the occasional deer, for company.
I shall live off mushrooms, acorns, ferns,
eggs fallen from the nest, rose hips
and blackberries in summer: the forest’s bounty.
Dress myself in moss, breathe slowly,
become like the rocks.
I shall call myself Rumpel,
if you’ve no objection.
None at all, said the other half.
I, however, want to see the world,
live as you have never dared to.
Start as a thief, steal coins from the rich,
food from the poor. Visit whorehouses.
Build my fortune, gamble with it —
win, lose, end up in debtor’s prison.
Drink dirty water, and a year later
fine burgundy, when I have regained my fortune
and more. I shall have estates
in Germany, in France. My mills will spew black smoke
over the countryside, manufacturing
fabric for elegant ladies, so they can wear
the latest fashions, my great looms
clacking and whirring like mechanical spiders.
That is the way to spin gold, brother.
When I am richer than the king,
he will offer me his daughter.
By then, I shall be Lord Stiltskin.
The two halves parted, with every sign
of mutual respect. Neither
chastised the other.
There were no recriminations.
In each of us
there is a thief and a saint.
The trouble of it is,
we cannot part them.
(The illustration is by Anne Anderson.)
Gratitude
by Theodora Goss
Lady, I will be grateful
even in the jaws of the wolf,
even as his teeth sink into my shoulder,
even as I hear the crunch of bone.
Even as I look up at the stars and realize
how alone we all are — our solitude
is our commonality. Even as the moon
seems to mock me
for having gotten into such a predicament.
Even as the entire firmament
is filled with laughter
that I once believed in happily-ever-after
or that wolves could be defeated,
with their sharp claws, red eyes.
I will, even, laugh a little at myself
and be grateful
because, after all, he is your wolf.
(The illustration is by Arthur Rackham.)
Today, I Joined the Resistance
by Theodora Goss
Today, I stood under the blue arc of the sky
and said, all these people passing by
are my sisters, my brothers.
The children playing in the parks,
running after balls
or swinging, legs stretched out,
up and down and back up again,
laughing for no reason,
are my children.
The Earth is my home, and nothing in it
is strange to me, or a stranger.
I will become a teacher, a caretaker.
The trees are my responsibility.
The birds flying above or perching
among the branches, gossiping in song,
the fish slipping under lily pads
through lakes glittering in the sunlight,
the wolves loping through forests,
the otters tumbling in river shallows,
all that lives are my family.
Even the stones, that dream
so slowly, and so long.
Today I decided that I will step lightly,
speak out, defend the defenseless.
I will live with a fierce joy,
and when I am afraid,
I will act anyway.
I will write a poem, plant a garden,
seek the truth, speak to the powerful
and say, not us, for we stand together,
sisters and brothers, for each other,
for the children, the trees, the otters,
the quick silver fish.
We stand for love, for sorrow at your depredations,
for righteous anger. Whether we are together
or, of necessity, alone.
How do I want to be remembered?
As one of those who gave in, gave up, collaborated
with the evil inside and outside myself?
Or one of those who stood
in the light and resisted? Who said
I will not collude with the enemy,
even when it is my own darkness?
Who was guided by love,
which is not an emotion,
but a decision?
Today, I joined the resistance
because it was the only choice
my heart could make
and be whole.
(The image is The Guardian of the Egg by Leonora Carrington.)
A Pledge
by Theodora Goss
I pledge myself to the Earth, my mother,
whose air I breathe tonight,
pledge myself to her and no other
beneath starlight.
While I live, she shall have the work of my hands
and the thoughts in my brain,
my laughter, my tears, compounded
of joy and pain.
When I die, she shall have my body,
such as it is,
to feed the slender white birches
and wood-anemones.
(The painting is Farmhouse With Birch Trees by Gustav Klimt.)
The Wanderer
by Theodora Goss
“Where are you going, wanderer?”
I asked as she walked by.
“Through the valleys and over the hills,
to the halls of the sky.”
“What will you do there?” I asked, confused.
“Study nature’s book.
Its pages are leaves, its words are rain
that runs into a brook,
and all the brooks together run
into a river, deep
as thought and swift as time. Its subject
makes the reader weep.”
“Why do you read such a sorrowful book?”
I asked her, standing there.
Her hair was black, her eyes as bright
as swallows in the air.
She wore a coat of autumn leaves,
yellow and brown and red.
She looked at me so solemnly,
then said,
“Because my mother wrote it.
I want to read her words:
the pattering of raindrops,
the crash of ocean waves,
the murmur of insects busy
among the summer flowers,
the silent yet insistent
descent of winter snows.
Although her central theme
moves me to tears:
that beauty and sorrow dance
together through the years.”
I gave her bread and water
and bade her stay awhile.
She shook her head and said,
with a distant smile,
“I’m on my mother’s business,
but my sister comes behind.
I beg you, greet her as kindly,
for she will bring the cold and frost,
reminders of what you have lost.
And keep in mind
what my mother has written, although
you may read it with tears:
that beauty and sorrow dance
together through the years.”
(The image is by Emile Eisman-Semenowsky. I thought the woman in it looked like autumn . . .)
The Frost
by Theodora Goss
The frost came on the harvest,
and fallow flowed the air;
the sheaves cleaved off in earnest
and all the skies grew bare.
The clouds fled off and blankness
arrayed the atmosphere,
and autumn in her fastness
had not one cloth to wear.
The leaves betrayed the branches
and grasses hueless hung
upon the valley’s haunches,
the lambent weeds among,
and over all that landscape
the season turned,
while swallows made escape
and the berries burned.
(The illustration is by Arthur Rackham. This poem was published in my collection Songs for Ophelia.)
Theodora Goss: Poems 