The Rhododendrons
by Theodora Goss
This morning I decided
to wear a purple dress so I would resemble
one of the rhododendrons. Oh wind in the bushes,
I noticed you dancing with their purple blossoms.
I’m ready too, anytime
you want to start.
(The painting is Rhododendron in Tuxen’s Garden by Laurits Tuxen.)
The Elf King’s Daughter
by Theodora Goss
It is the Elf King’s daughter,
with the leaf-light in her eyes,
that greenish twilight beneath the beech boughs
where only the hum of flies
disturbs the lilies of the valley
and ferns their fronds unfurl.
How dare I stir or show my presence
to the Elf King’s girl?
She sits so still upon the boulder,
the leaf-light in her hair
casting a greenish pall on its goldness.
Mortal, stare
at her small feet shod in leaf-green velvet,
her small hands pale and fay,
among the wood anemones
in early May.
(The image is The Fairy and the Frog by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite.)
The Bug: An Epitaph
by Theodora Goss
I feel as though I should write a poem
to the bug I flushed down the toilet
who had so many legs
so many
and whom if I were being more romantic
or literary I would call an insect.
But to me he was a bug
that I scooped up in bunched
toilet paper and flushed,
although he probably didn’t deserve
such disrespectful treatment
simply for walking across
the rug in my bedroom.
I couldn’t help it — the legs.
Just as now I can’t help
feeling guilty.
But I also feel strongly
that everyone, even a bug,
deserves an epitaph.
(The illustration is a vintage poster of North American insects. The particular bug mentioned in the poem is not on the poster. It had many more legs.)
The Princess and the Frog
by Theodora Goss
I threw the ball into the water.
The frog came out and followed after,
bringing me the golden ball —
which I did not want at all, at all.
Princess, he said, let me eat at your table.
I fed him as well as I was able.
Princess, let me sleep on your pillow.
He crept as close as I would allow.
He said, a witch enchanted me.
I’m not what I seem, you see,
but a prince in the form of a lowly frog,
forced to live in that wretched bog
where I found and retrieved the golden ball
you had deliberately let fall.
Why did you discard your treasure?
I said, because it gave me no pleasure.
The heavy scepter and orb of state
hurt my arms with their golden weight.
The scepter still lies within the pool,
among the weeds. I don’t want to rule
this country or wage the endless war
my father started. I want more
than political and diplomatic lies.
He blinked his iridescent eyes.
Kiss me, he said. And I did, despite
my misgivings. It felt appropriate,
almost as though I could hear my fate
knocking on the castle gate.
Then he turned into a prince, and I
into a frog, instantaneously.
He took me down to the pool again,
away from the troubling world of men.
There I swim in the cool green water,
and the only things that seem to matter
are the sun as it filters into the green
or the patter of a summer rain
on the leaves of the floating water lilies.
The flashing blue of dragonflies,
the stork that is my nemesis.
Who would have thought a single kiss
could release me from the strife
attendant on a human life
and bring me to the cool green heart
of the world, where all enchantments start?
Where life is still a fairy tale,
and I’m the princess of the pool.
(The image is The Princess and the Frog by William Robert Symonds.)
Spring Song
by Theodora Goss
Slowly the willow has turned to silver,
slowly, slowly, over the town,
a shadow has crept — the hint of the season,
the green-gauze hem of Spring’s wild gown.
Slowly the river begins to murmur,
slowly I measure the lengthening days,
and the birds return and from high in the budding
trees begin their virelays.
Grasses that cover the graveyard alleys
regain their verdure and windily nod,
and Spring herself sits upon the tombstones,
smiling a smile that is sweet and mad.
Her gown spreads away when the wind is blowing,
a green-gauze net that rides on the air,
and slowly the willow has turned to silver,
and neither she nor I can care.
(The painting is Dream by Joan Brull. The poem is from my collection Songs for Ophelia.)
Binnorie
by Theodora Goss
What is it about being made into a harp,
your bones as smooth as poplar, about being strung
with your own hair, golden or black or brown,
that presents such an appropriate allegory
for being a woman, and therefore an instrument
of fathers, husbands, or sons? Or is it rather
an allegory for being a poet, which is
a different thing altogether, I like to think,
although poetry can command you like a father,
berate you like a husband, and abandon
you like any number of sons?
(The painting is The Charmer by John William Waterhouse. This poem was published in my collection Songs for Ophelia.)
The Ballet
by Theodora Goss
Sometimes I think that life is a ballet
in which I am performing for the first time
without rehearsals or any advanced notice
of what I’m supposed to be dancing. No one told me:
Am I a village maid, a sylph, Giselle?
A consumptive courtesan or Juliet?
A snowflake that, earlier in the performance,
played the part of a soldier or a mouse?
Am I a soloist? An understudy
brought out one night when the prima ballerina
injured her ankle? Or something more abstract:
The color green? A series of triangles?
Sometimes I wish they’d let me see the program,
but that is for the audience, not performers.
So I must do the best I can, en pointe,
to understand whatever part I’m playing:
Clara beneath the Christmas tree, a swan,
Sleeping Beauty rescued by the Corsair.
Not knowing who is watching in the darkness,
or where that polite applause is coming from . . .
(The painting is L’Etoile (La Danseuse Sur La Scene) by Edgar Degas.)
