Theodora Goss: Poems

Vivian to Merlin
by Theodora Goss

I called you, and you would not answer me.
What power was it that trapped you in the oak?
They blame me, saying I have cast a spell,
but even if I had that sort of knowledge,
I would not hold you.

When I was young, a girl in Lyonesse,
a prince’s daughter running through the fields,
where all the peasants greeted me, or forests,
where I could call the birds down from their nests,
my two braids swinging,

I found a wounded raven, lifted him,
carried him back into my father’s castle,
placed him inside a basket on the hay
I’d stolen from the horses.  There he sat,
regarding me

with his black eyes, eating the worms and insects
I brought him. And eventually the wing,
which had been wounded by a dog perhaps,
holding the raven in its mouth, was healed.
At first he flew

around my room and perched upon the chest,
the windowsill. You know this story ends
the day he flung himself into the air
and flew over the fields, back to his forest.
Its moral is

you can’t hold what you love. Not for a moment,
not for a century. It must have been
another magician, as powerful as yourself,
or a giant who just happened to have a curse
handy. It must have.

I sit here with my back against the oak,
hoping it was a curse and not your choice.
(But who could trap Merlin himself? I could not,
despite the magic you have taught me.) Love,
if you can hear me,

as you sit curled inside the oak tree’s bole,
just tell me this: that it was not by choice
you left me, weary of our days and nights,
by daylight casting spells, by night lying
entwined, together.

You can’t hold what you love. I would not hold you —
but I had hoped that you would choose, yourself,
to stay with me. And yet you sit there, curled
in silence, Merlin of the silver tongue,
and I wait, hoping . . .

(The image is The Beguiling of Merlin by Edward Burne-Jones.)

Thumbelina
by Theodora Goss

Sometimes I would like to be very small
so I could curl into a snail’s shell
or a seashell: abalone, nautilus,
even an oyster shell.  I would let the oyster
cover me with layer on layer of nacre,
come out shining.

Sometimes I would like to be very small
so I could hide myself inside a flower,
between the petals of a tulip or crocus,
inside purple or crimson walls, like a genie
in her bottle.  I would emerge covered
with pollen, riding a bee.

Sometimes I would like to be small enough
to live in the hollow of a tree, like a bird
or squirrel.  I would dress in leaves, eat acorns,
make a coat of felted fur.  I would live alone,
hiding, hiding, always hiding,
because the world is full of large things
that are too large, too loud.
Over them, I can’t hear the sea
whispering, the beat of a sparrow’s wings,
the annoyed chuff of a robin.

I would like to be small enough
to hear the dawn breaking, the tulip opening,
the sand as it shifts under each tide,
the long dream of rocks.

(The image is Cock Robin and Flower Fairy by Kathleen Wallis Coales.)

The Quiet Woman
by Theodora Goss

They did not notice her: they never do.
She lived there many years and never said
a single thing to shock them.  Pleasant, kind,
and inconspicuous as the small gray mouse
whose progeny the house cat sometimes caught,
she gave less to complain about than the creaking
stair, the shutter that always hung awry.

A quiet woman.  Yet all those years, her mind
was filled with turbulent seas and the wild cries
of seabirds.  From it, stars were visible,
arranged in constellations never seen
elsewhere.  While she sat knitting silently,
savage wars were being fought between
soldiers with an orange sun on their breastplates,
tribesmen whose pennants bore a silver moon.

While she drank her evening cup of tea,
she walked on distant hills we never saw
beneath the slopes of mountains peaked with snow,
by waterfalls that roared and foamed, or cliffs
from which one could look down into abysses.
And while she sat and stared into the fire,
she dressed herself in darkness for strange balls
with dancers masked to resemble bears or foxes,
musicians playing invisible instruments,
the ballroom long ago fallen into ruin.
Her partner had no face, but waltzed impeccably.

She lived for years alone in a single room,
and nothing ever happened.  Each day passed
until the final day: a respectable life.

Now, I think, dressed in darkness and the armor
of the moon-tribe, she is leading desperate charges,
or sailing a ship with a dragon’s head on its prow,
creating an empire.  She will pluck the stars
for her crown, and rule the shores of an inner country
we were never allowed to enter.

(The image is Vilma Reading a Book by T.F. Simon.)

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.)