Da Capo Aria of The North Wind

Part I 

When a deer in the field lays down its head

in Orithyia’s lap, cooking smoke, rise

from the wide courtyard, then the North Wind cries,

flaps to and fro like a moth almost dead.

It could once render the earth a frozen

wasteland, where I could not, when thirsty, drink

from the glassy river, not even think.

A man with ice in his beard had chosen

me for his wife, and his cloak billowed long

behind him in the gale, unyielding late

had I been, and not domesticated,

but a lush garden of hyacinth, fawns

were born in my arms as it was my fate.

I held all Athens, bright, honey-sated.

 

I was a mortal princess, who gathered

flowers for garlands divine, my sisters

danced with me on the banks of the river

Ilisos near Athens’ gate and powers.

We twirled and sang like school girls, innocent

long into the afternoon where plovers

plaintive called, grey herons bent, sandpipers

rose and flew with our cries, then reticent.

Under chaste branches, we grabbed hold, fingers

delicate laced around the birds and trees,  

oleander, light and fresh, blossoming

where light and harmony early linger,

their allure: spices radiate in tea,

like the warmth of afternoon in late spring.

It was here the Anemoi, bearded wind,

stole my cluster of grapes while I was wrapped

in a cloud, in the viciousness grappled,

the elements’ finesse both matte and thin.

This was no bludgeoning dark storm’s thunder,

it was immediate, I was sucked dry

by my aggressor who ignored my cry:

Boreas’ violet-winged horse of winter.

Carried away, I was dark-abducted

while the cormorants circled empty grave,

and the Old World sycamore wept and fought

off winter while turning from green, blood red,

bowed its luminous spreading head and staved

off death before the river’s horrid plot.

 

He made me goddess of the mountain winds

but I would rage in my mind, voice escaped

my throat in a roar in our stony cave

on Mount Haimos. No, I would not rescind,

and became the goat-like mother of snow,

both fallen and immortal, I bequeathed

pearls and threw them in his face like fine lace,

before his goatish hair had burned coals low.

Earth-coloured mantle swept divinity,

as I was cast in women’s ravished role

of pouring and pouring soup in black pot,

where witchcraft’s heavy cauldron tempted me,

of the wintry herbs I grew from dank holes—

the henna soil of humanity’s lot.

 

Part II

 

I gave him two sons, the bright dusk Boreads,

the gold-haired children named Calais and Zetes,

who, from whitened nodes, sprouted their smooth wings

of feather or stone it was rumoured, lead

swans that eat the chaste berries from the trees,

as locks of graceful hair fell long from them,

as grape-white roses grow from gracious stem,

as monks’ collectives desire chastity.

I collected my ashes where they lay,

gathered up my tears from the cooking fire,

and here, I found my rough hands exhausted,

white willow bark was extracted for pay,

for the pains of loneliness and the dire

end of bitterness of those accosted.

 

Cleopatra, Chione, two daughters

I bore, with eyes of rain, and hair, sunshine

threaded: the oils of Damask rose and thyme,

distilled, gathered in the soul of laughter.

In token fertile soil of ancient Greece,

my first daughter grew figs, apples, and pears,

my second grew lettuce and cucumbers,

garlic, and onions, from small seeds of peace.

Beside their green vegetable beds, they grew

windflowers with vivid velvet petals,

Dianthus, to make ceremonial

flower crowns for the Olympics, when threw

the discus in competition, medals

of the gods, as a reward, bountiful.

Cleopatra, illustrious daughter,

was a vision of the moonlight alone,

was subject to the tide’s pull, and sea’s moan,

carnation crown in her hair, the former

capricious goddess was solemn vision

as she then married Phineus of Thrace,

her faith in him no demon could erase,

with vigour she carried out her mission

to live in the valley, not icy falls,

and grow like a vineyard of heady grapes,

to once and for all avenge her mother.

For she was a heroine, and stood tall;

she was averse to the North Wind’s cold rape,

and she was loved, she could love another.

 

Part III

 

When the Boreads reached manhood, boasting

of their long curling hair, they rose ringing

into the sky from their soft sprouted wings

against all demons of darkness fighting.

They stood with Cleopatra, side by side,

unflinching, they warm-wind-like hummed through rain,

and drove the freezing ice away of pain,

while heavy grotesque monsters could not fly.

The Boreads carried spears, with iron

points, and their engraved shields were polished bronze

mirror, so you could see your hair-framed face.

In the handles of their shortswords, lions—

on the xiphos, their double-edged weapons.

For midnight attacks, enemies would brace.

The wind brothers, fit athletes, thrust their spears,

blood of the lower levels dripped dark orange,

the caverns of the deep were dragon’s lore,

when scaly creatures were gored to arrears.

The Harpies appeared on the horizon,

they had with them their wind-royal hostage:

Phineus the king, of Zeus—demi-god,

for he had been seduced by a second

wife, who told him to condemn his children

to blindness and torture. The gods punished

him, sentencing him to Harpies’ torments.

Wings carved the rising sons of the North Wind:

they would not kill the Harpies; they gave chase,

sending them reeling to the underworld.

 

When all earth hangs sorrowful, in despair,

I am like the morning after the night,

binding up the old dark with glowing light,

and gather up the sheaves in my black hair.

I am wild blue hyacinth after rain:

in an earthy garden, satin and smooth,

nonchalant above the ebony hues

of the soil, banal and bright floral pain.

With my brush I paint a thousand flowers,

with my ear, I lean to the music of

each new greenly species under the oak

Time, rings in broad trunk, of living bower,

with its flax-grey thin scarves for my pale doves

to fly out, under little eaves they broke.

Emily Isaacson

Requiem of Juliet

He wears a mask, O swear I am a saint.

He, a pilgrim, and now his sin erased.

Stolen kiss, he would be absolved in faith,

and though unmoving, I would not be faint.

For at this grand feast hall of my parents,

there is no masked dance except noble dance

of Capulets and their guests, in one glance

I could assess their numerous talents.

I stand in a room no Montague would dare

enter, for this long-standing feud would not

end, stirs up dissention in Verona.

I dance, whirl, coming close enough to stare

at Paris—the one I blindly could not

marry.  I would rather have a love knot.

 

I am only thirteen, and though naïve,

I have kissed the one I love, now knowing

love eternally—in one boat rowing,

behind a pillar, mysterious, brave.

No offer, except that sin be removed

from my dull lips: I kiss you once again.

But who might you be in this vaulted space?

I, closing my eyes, that heaven be moved,

that I would not be anarchy-tainted,

but if only to know your name; my nurse

shall tell me what I ask, I now implore.

For I am but a nightingale, sainted,

winnowing the dark on the Holm oak’s purse,

its wealth, the wealth of Verona’s waxed floor.

 

Romeo in black mask, my enemy,

a Montague no less, nurse enunciates,

and yet our flame-held love hallucinates

from enmity to righteous purity.

This kind of reverence, throated passion,

has been my crime, for I am now outcast,

tiptoeing in the silence that you fast

without me, hunger-stricken in fashion.

Left in noxious blasphemy, I feel sea

on stone against religion’s enamelled

calling—its staid followers to renounce

idolatry: Romeo has seen me

and all his poignant affection channeled,

and yet this one love I could not announce.

 

That night, I stepped on the stone balcony;

the nightingales were chanting. Then the same

wept—I wished for him to renounce his name:

in one bold space, his voice commanded me—

“Juliet, it is I, your Romeo.”

And in his hand—a silver rose, his hair,

as if it acquiesced by moonlight’s air,

his hand, flailing for my aquiline nose.

I watched him in the garden under night:

I seethe lone, from stately Capulet’s house,

that I should be forced to marry Paris,

he with whom I have no blinded delight—

it is the darker Romeo I love,

it is the mysterious force of fate.

 

With chestnut mane tumbling down my shoulders,

and my white wool apron tucked away, get

the friar with myrtle in his basket

to marry us, while rejecting of verse,

as villains in crime, we would, in secret,

be wed. We would carry thorned-blood roses,

as briny ocean marries rock, lap shore,

and lily-youthful vows we’d not regret.

It was on his way home that my husband

encountered a street fight and battled kin,

and when his noble friend was stabbed to death,

my cousin’s blood red-flowed into the sand.

O majesty Verona, my cousin

was dear to me, my tears, twined laurel wreath.

 

Under a spray of juniper berries,

I am outlined against the star-crossed night,

while the Montagues and the Capulets fight

in the street as ardent adversaries.

Raising words as violent rapiers, swords

subtle; while only a youth, I perceive

that I may use a word swiftly, conceive

of a future to work deftly towards.

What is this lark singing sweetly I hear?

What song could bend with morning to entice?

To speak a word gives it meaning in jest;

could the fates be re-written by my care?

The quill beneath my hand was cool as ice

to mother: I would not marry Paris.

 

O sorrowful Verona, my husband

climbed a cloth ladder to my bedroom while

banished from you for murder: cousin’s bile

mixed with the dust of russet boot-shaped land.

We embraced until morn and when the last

nightingale sang, he fled over the ledge

of the balcony. We gave solemn pledge

to meet again, like statues in gold cast.

Morning I was to wed Paris, they found

me dead, as by the friar’s herbal aid

I did drink tincture. I feigned death, but stealth—

Romeo heard, and rushed to my sealed tomb.

There he drank an apothecary’s made

poison’s death; I awoke—then stabbed myself.

Emily Isaacson

  

All photos used by permission.

https://armstreet.com/

Requiem of Cinderella

In a coal corner of the kitchen bare,

Violet with blond locks sweeps the fireplace,

dusted with old wasp wings, she weeps, disgraced;

a Cinderella, broom beneath the stair.

She lives in the attic of this grand house,

sleeping on iron bed, banished above,

while once she was her father’s winging dove—

now attended to by a graying mouse.

While she scurries for her stepsisters sleeves,

her head in dreams, she sings the brightest note,

making mouse-errand trips to a moss knoll,

while she shines crystal fluting and believes

a prince she met in a field one day spoke,

inviting supple women to a ball.

 

Though her voice, remedy from beech and chaste,

grew Black Hambourg vine up the grey stone wall,

childhood whispering to her china doll,

a father’s princess of unbroken lace.

She as a maiden tethered the gold horse

in the pasture with the sun for rose lamp

setting overhead, she rode from her camp

of hundred-year-old mansion Le Gall Gorse,

where evil stepmother next made her home

with her two daughters, wild moor hills of France

subduing Violet ’cross Finistère

to scrub the mansion floors with castile soap.

Her face smudged with soot, Cinderella sang

a dirge to the clock’s ticking minister.

Wood violet, dear child grown to woman,

knelt, her wisps of rough long blond hair tied back,

nuanced modesty on wrought iron stand,

her purple nosegay resting to chasten

her to repetitive token paintbrush,

she imbued the long strokes, watercolour:

fiery centre, water-purple, flower

pot—on rippling landscape escaping lush.

Armorica peninsula, clean drawn,

a shuttered house close to the lashing sea

opened its arms then, a hundred-years-old—

with steady beech a shelter, tolerant

godmother of old, whose ideas—tea,

brewed black tannins in glass, wizened and cold.

 

She made a thousand stitches, quilt patterns

growing and dispensing with coming night,

unlike the tormented filtered daylight

streams, shafted through the ancient window, yearns

for child, rests on eight pointed star, quarter

square, patchwork, snowball, or four patch quilt block.

While she is only their servant, a knock:

a demanding order from stepmother.

Violet has garden robins for friends,

as sweet as she is enduring and kind,

she greets each red breast—named, welcomes them in

her apron, to perch on the porch, the depths,

shadows in the yard broken by wind chimes,

the long-forgotten music wears not thin. 

 

English violet on French soil, your feet

have travelled over the moors, like your eyes

adore cairns left as monuments, raised ties

to the past, remembrance in tumuli,

like a shrine of stones that weeps in colour

of the earthen Noires Mountains in the south,

towering over Muscadet’s rough cloth,

greenly with cut crystal’s wine-like savour.

Aroma of the sea’s sapidity,

you are salt-crashing to sand, cresting white,

it breathes from flecked clam shells in rocky coves

before formations, the ocean crafting

of millennia-wayfaring granite

in its own way, as a religion’s trove.

 

This fertile ground begat the Chardonnay

in your father’s cupboard, variety

of clusters on the vine, a toast lady-

like, delicate vineyard velvet-leaf’s day.

The violet, when overshadowed, hides

not far down the lane, under hedgerows, near

a row of mice, a pumpkin, makes the tears

of the scullery maid’s coal face, crying. 

She sings a low tune, calls out, then the day

of days, when in godmother-drafted dress,

meets the prince again at the castle ball.

She is a lavender-hued beauty stayed,

bedecked with crystal necklace at her crest

of throat, the clear gems in a dance with all.

 

Her dainty figure left her glass slipper,

after waltzing, just bent, a dance-flower

petal-purple under sunset’s power,

cream sash imbuing eyes of cornflower

amid elegant feet’s primal chaos

on the parquet floors, dancing in their blooms,

hooves and carriages en route to their tombs,

the prince, her shoe in hand, would find her lot

then, as purple emperor butterfly:

kneels to put it on her foot, then rises,

so the white bands and the orange-dot-hindwings,

blue-black then crease the air like quiet cries

of liberty. All around violets,

in glittering castle where her veil reigns.

Emily Isaacson

All photos used by permission.

https://armstreet.com/

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May: Requiem of the Wild Rose

My blossomed summer approaches in June.

My giantess hands hold the wild rose bush,

as it plumbs the live earth with its tap root,

what I have planted no swine will uproot.

Here velvet petals fall about, supine,

as I collect them in my silken bowl,

my face, shadowed, by navy linen cowl,

the word-sketched lace of lost Europe sublime.

The potpourri of nations gathered here

beneath my careful hands—seeds, wrinkled, dry,

petals on the day will, vacuous, shrink,

the audience obliged, their heads raise near,

to taste a smell so sweet, their heads bowed, cry:

at perfume on the brink, in rosa-pink.

 

Who is Rhonda? the populace might ask,

as my rose bushes divide the white sun,

as my broad shoulders held trowels like guns,

and garden muscle rippled at the task.

I had dark coarse hair like a horse’s mane,

and hands like a man’s, that dug in the earth:

this is my haven, lest you swallow first

the fruit of rose hips without noticing

who grew them there for your china teacup,

who first held the seedlings, and trimmed to thorn,

who in all right gathered the burr rose buds

in all their burgundy glory, starlets—

kicked at my resigned brow like newly born—

and diva-wide leaves curtseyed to no one.

 

It was no easy task not to be feared,

so I kept to myself in the garden

of wild roses, the play-land of pardon

where the pine tree’s imagined guilt is cleared.

Every plant has a purpose to the mind,

and kept in bowls, they resonate on dew,

they reverberate to heal and be new

bandages to the poor, renewal-kind.

These remedies, gentle, innocuous,

have glass droppers in apothecary,

with labels in brown, line the referenced shelves.

I am well equipped, for the sensitive:

bottle by bottle, steeped in dark brandy,

every book about these valued plants sells.

 

To write each word in scrawl, I am resigned;

I bow my head in sacred solitude.

Hands reach out as if blind, similitude

to those in the dark and shackled, confined.

I shall be their pale hands and fruitless feet:

medicine, Socrates in a black slug

re-creates their hard skulls from languid mud,

ravishing the frozen heart’s rhythmic beat.

Here in this dirt, I am forever plant

of greenest, verdant, rain-soaked, flow’ring park:

there is a branch reaching out, magenta

on drying spruce where now I languish, rant,

wailing as wild rose, petals fall to bark

in falling dark, covering stigmata.

 

Rising harmonic line ascends as shrill

as woodwinds can raise the dead from their graves,

as heavenward the dusty lift their face,

their lost, wayward fuchsia mouths have their fill.

For every born child—fair with marked face—

at this burden, has hung their heads in shame,

resigned to what they carry as their fame,

and cowered before others in disgrace.

As adults, they go on, and did forget

the notions they, as children, entertained

in innocence at some brown misplaced mole.

Where hunch-backed crows cawed out at their regret;

beneath the witch-like trees, inside the rain,

honey-haired lads went on without a chore.

 

But I, Rhonda, lifted the rock water

to the pink rose tree on the scull-wood knoll,

poured from my Ethiopian-black bowl,

temple of apothecary fathers. 

Here there is only a taste of rose milk,

what is pressed and left from the dead teacher

who made the path through this tangled ether

modernity, shoes the doctor would fill.

Bach is veritable god, the creatures

cried in unison, no leaf, nor flower

unnoticed. All nature, his remedy,

and his clean, clinical, boyish features

crafted, yielding of his one shy power

to graft the wild-blown branch—calamity.

I, Rhonda, stand tall in last eve’s twilight.

I am genuinely liked by no one,

I am incongruous; the last bold thorn

of the wild rose, in early summer, fights

as a flock of geese adapts to the winds.

I remind my patrons with solemn truce

of calloused hand’s shaping nature’s rose-puce,

of how a strong woman never rescinds,

of an old lament—song from long ago:

not to be afraid of your own thorns, sharp

where they grow. Croon the antiquated runes,

for this is how the wild rose rampant sows,

this is her dedicated music, harp

that sings aloud; with her digits, she prunes.

 

Emily Isaacson

 

All photos used by permission.

https://armstreet.com/