Theodora Goss: Poems

Ravens
by Theodora Goss

Some men are actually ravens.

Oh, they look like men.
Some of them in suits,
some of them in shirts embroidered
with the names of baseball teams,
some in uniforms, fighting in wars we only see
on television.
But underneath, they are ravens.
Look carefully, and you will find their skins of feathers.

Once, I fell in love with a raven man.
I knew that to keep him I had to take his skin,
his skin of feathers, long and black as night,
like ebony, tarmac, licorice, black holes.
I found it (he had taken it off to play baseball)
and hid it in the attic.

He was mine for seven years.

I had to make promises:
not to hurt ravens, to give our children names
like Sky, and Rain Cloud, and Nest-of-Twigs,
spend one night a week in the bole of an old oak tree
that had been hollowed out by who-knows-what.
I had to eat worms. (Yes, I ate worms.)
You do crazy things for raven men.

In return,
he spent six nights a week in my arms.
His black feathers fell around me.
He gave me three children
(Sky, Rain Cloud, Nest-of-Twigs,
whom we called Twiggy).
And I was happy,
which is more than most people achieve.

You know where this is going.
One day, I threw a stone at a raven.
I was not angry, he was not doing anything in particular.
It is just
that raven men are always lost.
Think of it as destiny,
think of it as inevitable.

I was not tired of our nights together,
with the moon gleaming on his feathers.
No.

Or maybe he found his skin in the attic?
Maybe I had taken his skin and he found it,
and he picked three feathers from it
and touched each of our children,
and they flew away together?
Maybe that’s how I lost them?

I don’t even remember.

Loving raven men will make you crazy.
In the mornings I see them hurrying to their offices,
the men in suits. And I see them in bars
shouting for their baseball teams, and I see them
on television in wars that have no names,
and I say, that one is a raven man,
and that one, and that one.

Sometimes I stop one and say,
will you send my raven man back to me?
And my raven children?
Some night, when the moon is gleaming,
the way it used to gleam
on long black feathers falling
around my face?

(The painting is by Wladyslaw Benda. The poem was originally published in Goblin Fruit and reprinted in my poetry collection Songs for Ophelia.)

I Knew a Woman
by Theodora Goss

I knew a woman kind as any star.
She wrapped the night wind warm about her neck.
She sang like crickets chirping in a jar.
She called the violet twilight her true home
and dusted constellations.  For her sake,
the moon swept out its pewter-powdered dome.

Black clouds would scorn to sail on common ponds
and light upon the liquid of her mind.
They flared and ruffed their fluted wings like swans.
And when she spoke the poplars strove to hear,
and when sometimes she cried out in the wind,
her voice was more than all the stars could bear.

(The image is a painting by Arthur Rackham.)

What Her Mother Said
by Theodora Goss

Go, my child, through the forest
to your grandmother’s house, in a glade
where poppies with red mouths grow.

In this basket is an egg laid
three days ago,
the three days our Lord lay sleeping,
unspotted, from a white hen.
In this basket is also a skein
of wool, without stain,
unspun. And a comb that the bees
industriously filled
from the clover in the far pasture,
unmown since the sun
thawed it, last spring.

If you can take it without breaking
anything, I will give you
this ring.

Stay, child, and I’ll give you this cap
to wear, so the forest creatures whose eyes
blink from the undergrowth will be aware
that my love protects you. The creatures
lurking beneath the trees,
weasels and stoats and foxes, and worse
than these.

And child, you must be wise
in the forest.

When the wolf finds you, remember:
be courteous, but evasive. No answer
is better than a foolish one.

If you stray from the path, know
that I strayed also. It is no great matter,
so long as you mark the signs:
where moss grows on bark, where a robin
builds her nest. The sun
sailing west.

But do not stop to gather
the hawthorn flowers, nor yet
the red berries which so resemble
coral beads. They are poisonous.
And do not stop to listen
to the reeds.

He must not be there first,
at your grandmother’s house.

When your grandmother serves you,
with a silver spoon, on a dish
like a porcelain moon, Wolf Soup,
remember to say your grace
before you eat.

And know that I am pleased
with you, my child.

But remember, when returning through the forest,
kept warm against the night by a cloak
of the wolf’s pelt:
the hunter is also a wolf.

(The image is an illustration for “Little Red Riding Hood” by Sir John Everett Millais.)

The Bear’s Daughter
by Theodora Goss

She dreams of the south. Wandering through the silent castle,
where snow has covered the parapets and the windows
are covered with frost, like panes of isinglass,
she dreams of pomegranates and olive trees.

But to be the bear’s daughter is to be a daughter, as well,
of the north. To have forgotten a time before
the tips of her fingers were blue, before her veins
were blue like rivers flowing through fields of ice.

To have forgotten a time before her boots
were elk-leather lined with ermine.

Somewhere in the silent castle, her mother is sleeping
in the bear’s embrace, and breathing pomegranates
into his fur. She is a daughter of the south,
with hair like honey and skin like orange-flowers.

She is a nightingale’s song in the olive groves.

And her daughter, wandering through the empty garden,
where the branches of yew trees rubbing against each other
sound like broken violins,

dreams of the south while a cold wind sways the privet,
takes off her gloves, which are lined with ermine, and places
her hands on the rim of the fountain, in which the sun
has scattered its colors, like roses trapped in ice.

(This poem was originally published in The Journal of Mythic Arts. The image is by Boris Olshansky.)

How to Make It Snow
by Theodora Goss

First you must fall down the well.

At the bottom of the well
is the country at the bottom of the well.
That is its name, the only one it has.
You have two names, either the beautiful girl
or the kind girl, depending
on what day it is.

At the bottom of the well is a green meadow,
just like in the country you came from
but different. For one thing, the cows can speak.
They say, “Scratch our backs, scratch us
under the chin,” and you do.

The meadow is filled with poppies
and cornflowers. The air is warm,
and the sun is shining.

“Thank you, beautiful girl,” say the cows
and you walk on.

Across the meadow, there is a narrow path
worn by cow hooves. Follow it.

First you come to the oven.
“Take me out, take me out,” cries the bread.
“I’m burning up!” You take it out,
a brown wholemeal loaf. Carry it with you
for the birds — they appear later.

Next you come to the apple tree.
“Shake us down, shake us down,” cry the apples.
“We’re ripe!” So you shake the branches, as though
you were dancing with them.
The apples come tumbling down.
You put three in your pocket.

Now you are at the edge of the forest
and the birds call, “Feed us, feed us!”
You ask the loaf, “May I?”
“This is what I was baked for,” says the loaf.

So you scatter breadcrumbs
and the birds come, sparrows and chickadees,
robins and finches and juncos,
and a nuthatch. They perch on your arms
as you feed them. Absentmindedly,
you whistle as they do.

In the forest, a wild sow approaches.
For the first time you are afraid and step back,
but she says, “My little ones are hungry,
and I smell something sweet.”
You pull the apples out of your pocket.
“May I?” you ask, and the apples reply,
“This is why we fell.”

You kneel while the sow watches protectively,
feeding the apples to her three piglets,
bristle-backed, with tusks just starting to form
but still striped as though someone had marked them
with her fingers. The sow nods and says,
“You are a kind girl.” Then, followed by her progeny,
she disappears into the trees.
You continue alone.

It is getting dark. You have passed through the oaks
and now it is all pines. You are walking on needles.
The light is fading when you come to the cottage.
It looks like the cottage out of a fairy tale:
peaked roof like a witch’s hat, dark green trim,
small-paned windows through which firelight is flickering.
Someone is waiting for you.

You have nothing left, no bread, no apples.
So you knock.

The woman who answers is old, small,
like a doll made of cornhusks.
“You’re hungry,” she says,
“and tired. Come in, my dear.
The soup is almost ready.”

There is a fire, and a cauldron on the fire,
and a chair by the fire, and a cat in the chair,
and you can smell the soup.

“Come on, then,” says the cat, and gets up,
but only to settle again in your lap
once you sit down.

Here are the things you know about the old woman:
she milks the cows, she causes the apples to ripen,
she teaches the birds their songs, she runs her fingers
along the backs of the wild piglets
to put the stripes on them.

Here are the things she knows about you:
everything, also your name.

“What are you called, my dear?” she asks.
“The beautiful girl,” you answer. “Or the kind girl.”
“No,” she says. “From now on, you shall be
she who makes it snow.
Or Holle, for short.”

Holle: it suits you.

“Here’s what I’d like you to do tomorrow morning.
Sweep the floor and dust the shelves,
wash the curtains and wind the clock,
polish the silver. And when that’s done,
shake out my bedspread until the feathers
fly like snowflakes. It’s time for winter.
Can you do that?”

You nod. Yes, of course.

That night you sleep under the cat,
in her attic bedroom.

The next morning, you put on an apron she left for you,
then sweep the floor and dust the shelves,
wash the curtains in a metal basin,
wind the clock and polish the silver. Finally,
you stand on the cottage steps under tall pines
and shake out the old woman’s bedspread.

Snow falls and falls, until
the forest is silent.

“Well done, my dear.” She’s wearing a gray wool coat
and carrying a battered suitcase. “Can you do that again
tomorrow morning, and the day after tomorrow?
I need to visit my sisters, and I’m not sure
when I’ll be back yet.
It takes a responsible girl, but I’ve heard good things
about you from the cows, the bread, the apples,
the birds, even the trees. And the cat likes you.”

“I’ll do my best,” you say.
She kisses you on both cheeks, then rises up, up,
through the trees until she is only a speck
in the colorless sky.

You go back into the cottage.
There is a cat to scratch under the chin,
and books with stories you have never read,
and you haven’t introduced yourself to the clock yet.

Besides, you like your new name.
It’s the right name for a woman
who makes the snow fall.

(The image is an illustration for “Frau Holle” from Nursery and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm.)

Lady Winter
by Theodora Goss

My soul said, let us visit Lady Winter.

Why? I responded. Look, the leaves still lie
yellow and red and orange in the gutters.
The geese float on the river. On the sidewalks,
puddles continue to reflect the sky.

My soul said, the branches are bare.
And you can feel it, can’t you, in your bones?
The chill that is a promise of her coming.
The year is growing older. Anyway,
you haven’t seen her in so long: it’s time.

We put on our visiting hats.
I stood admiring myself in the mirror
while my soul stood beside me looking pensive
and pale. Was she a little sick? I wondered.

Lady Winter lives on an ancient street
lined with elms that canker has not touched,
in a tall brownstone with lace curtain panels,
empty window boxes, two stone lions.
We rang the bell and heard it echoing.

A maid opened the door. Her name is Frost.

My lady looked the way she always does:
white hair, a string of pearls, rings on her fingers,
age somewhere between forty and four thousand,
a kind, implacable smile.

She said, my dear, what’s wrong? You don’t look well.
What, me? I’m fine. Perfectly fine, I said.
My soul just shook her head.

My lady has a parlor with a fireplace
in which I’ve never seen a fire. Instead,
it’s filled with decorative branches. Doilies
lie like snowflakes on the tables, bookshelves,
over the backs of armchairs.

She’s always wearing a gray cashmere sweater
and expensive shoes. She must have a closetful.

She usually serves us tea and ladyfingers.
But this time she said, I want you to go to bed.

Frost will take you upstairs, then I’ll come up
to cover you in blankets of felted wool,
comforters stuffed with down from eider ducks
that nest by Norwegian fjords. I’ll read you books
of fairytales about bears and princesses,
and stolen crowns, and castles beneath the sea,
and northern lights.
Grandmothers who grant wishes, talking reindeer,
a village in the clouds.

I’ll talk to you until you fall asleep.
Your soul will sit and watch through the long night.
From time to time she’ll take your temperature
to make sure you’re all right.

So I lay down in Lady Winter’s guest room:
reluctantly, but it looked so inviting,
a bed with draperies and a painted ceiling
from which the moon was hanging
by a silver chain.

My soul sat down beside me.
Don’t worry, she said. There’s plenty for me to do.
Poetry to embroider, plans to knit.
I’ll wake you when the crocuses have broken
through the black soil, when warmth has come again.

Then Lady Winter put her soft, dry hand
like paper on my forehead
and she said
rest now.

(The image is by Elizabeth Sonrel.)

Snow White Learns Witchcraft
by Theodora Goss

One day she looked into her mother’s mirror.
The face looking back was unavoidably old,
with wrinkles around the eyes and mouth. I’ve smiled
a lot, she thought. Laughed less, and cried a little.
A decent life, considered altogether.

She’d never asked it the fatal question that leads
to a murderous heart and red-hot iron shoes.
But now, being curious, when it scarcely mattered,
she recited Mirror, mirror, and asked the question:
Who is the fairest? Would it be her daughter?

No, the mirror told her. Some peasant girl
in a mountain village she’d never even heard of.

Well, let her be fairest. It wasn’t so wonderful
being fairest. Sure, you got to marry the prince,
at least if you were royal, or become his mistress
if you weren’t, because princes don’t marry commoners,
whatever the stories tell you. It meant your mother,
whose skin was soft and smelled of parma violets,
who watched your father with a jealous eye,
might try to eat your heart, metaphorically —
or not. It meant the huntsman sent to kill you
would try to grab and kiss you before you ran
into the darkness of the sheltering forest.

How comfortable it was to live with dwarves
who didn’t find her particularly attractive.
Seven brothers to whom she was just a child, and then,
once she grew tall, an ungainly adolescent,
unlike the shy, delicate dwarf women
who lived deep in the forest. She was constantly tripping
over the child-sized furniture they carved
with patterns of hearts and flowers on winter evenings.

She remembers when the peddler woman came
to her door with laces, a comb, and then an apple.
How pretty you are, my dear, the peddler told her.
It was the first time anyone had said
that she was pretty since she left the castle.
She didn’t recognize her. And if she had?
Mother? She would have said. Mother, is that you?
How would her mother have answered? Sometimes she wishes
the prince had left her sleeping in the coffin.

He claimed he woke her up with true love’s kiss.
The dwarves said actually his footman tripped
and jogged the apple out. She prefers that version.
It feels less burdensome, less like she owes him.

Because she never forgave him for the shoes,
red-hot iron, and her mother dancing in them,
the smell of burning flesh. She still has nightmares.
It wasn’t supposed to be fatal, he insisted.
Just teach her a lesson. Give her blisters or boils,
make her repent her actions. No one dies
from dancing in iron shoes. She must have had
some sort of heart condition. And after all,
the woman did try to kill you. She didn’t answer.

And so she inherited her mother’s mirror,
but never consulted it, knowing too well
the price of coveting beauty. She watched her daughter
grow up, made sure the girl could run and fight,
because princesses need protecting, and sometimes princes
are worse than useless. When her husband died,
she went into mourning, secretly relieved
that it was over: a woman’s useful life,
nurturing, procreative. Now, she thinks,
I’ll go to the house by the seashore where in summer
we would take the children (really a small castle),
with maybe one servant. There, I will grow old,
wrinkled and whiskered. My hair as white as snow,
my lips thin and bloodless, my skin mottled.

I’ll walk along the shore collecting shells,
read all the books I’ve never had the time for,
and study witchcraft. What should women do
when they grow old and useless? Become witches.
It’s the only role you get to write yourself.

I’ll learn the words to spells out of old books,
grow poisonous herbs and practice curdling milk,
cast evil eyes. I’ll summon a familiar:
black cat or toad. I’ll tell my grandchildren
fairy tales in which princesses slay dragons
or wicked fairies live happily ever after.
I’ll talk to birds, and they’ll talk back to me.
Or snakes — the snakes might be more interesting.

This is the way the story ends, she thinks.
It ends. And then you get to write your own story.

(The image is The Enchanted Wood by Helen Jacobs.)