Medieval Letter

The waxen seal to hold a letter fast—

a kiss mark on an envelope, deep red—

from me to you. You’ve always liked your bread

hinted with buttercups, their gold amassed.

Somewhere in the back of my dress closet,

I unearthed my silk. When there is silence

your voice echoes in my mind, a white horse.

Somewhere in the depth of time, the wind stopped.

Horses ran down the hill in the morning.

Holding out my palms in open posture,

I was waiting for you—the sunrise, drenched

in colour. I think of you; a bell rings.

Observing myself in the glass mirror

of time, reminds me of all you defend.

Monet’s ‘Impression, Sunrise’

The boats of Port of Le Havre pass like dreams

of a woman, verdant blue and milky;

they are flowing on salt air, still lapping

at her shoulders in ripples of morning.

Long roundabout way, she, astute, perceives

through the mist, construction of the port dock,

from inner cages, wild birds light on rocks—

the way canaries peck dry, stoic seed,

is the same way she drinks blue Oolong tea,

Opium Hill, a steeping orange sun.

She breakfasts on rye off the fishing boats,

with pink marbled ham, slabs of white Comté,

the way, in the cold water, fish tracks run,

the nets canvassing the depths; silver loads

the boat decks with thrashing, scaling bodies.

(sonnet sequences form this 15 line ekphrastic poem)

Art: Claude Monet: Impression Sunrise, 1872.

Thisbe and Pyramus

When Thisbe bends down her ear to the wall,

strains as if to hear lilt of melody

from Pyramus, his sounding trumpet dies,

blast onward flows to lover’s labile call.

Grey heron’s harsh note flies over the springs,

moon rises, a lucid petal in white,

then lovers are prophets on beams of night,

and the nymph opens tepid mouth to sing.

Then token in the realm of regal love

would find its meaning, clothed in worm-spun silk,

and in its garments, a hand in pocket

finds another finite hand, beauty does

render all words mute, and turns ice to milk,

the warmth of fading summer’s gold locket.

 

Then Thisbe put her fingers to the crack,

ensured she’d tear apart restraining wall,

if lovers, human-distanced in their calls,

could not mulberry tree find, but barrack.

Her Pyramus, his water upwards springs

when separated from her in lines lost

to earth, a concentration camp, the cost

of forcible star on their coats: sprout wings

and fly away then from that barren place,

Babylon where lovers are in prisons

of time and chance and parentage, not lust,

where mouths, red roses, could not kiss nor taste,

up the figurative wall have risen,

river petals streaming in heron dust.

Emily Isaacson

Image: Thisbe by J.W. Waterhouse