I.
Sky or water
it doesn't much matter
I was falling I was flying
with a stone around my neck
drowning in illness
We could say you reached down
and pulled me out
it wouldn't be an overstatement
You were not Calypso
and I was not Odysseus
though when I consider
everything we went through
the analogy is fitting
I rested with you
on that volcanic island
erupting in the middle of Europa
and I was grateful
As the sweet centenarian habits
of high fat, early sleep and sex
became a fascist doctrine
I found myself floundering again
feeling controlled and angry
in the face of your volcano project
I was no longer buying it
and my mind wandered home
to the doorsteps of my children
because those deep umbral cords
and the lyric flow of breast milk
keep us united in an eternal song
Even if I could see into the future
as you would later bless
and curse me with
the rejection complete and total
of sons for their mother
I still longed to return
and every morning
I ran through the streets of Lamia
heart beating madly
with fire and sweat
and nothing could help me
not warm Greek bread
not antique beauty
Sweet Calypso
I had to leave
mais j'ai fait un beau voyage
and even if you are
correct that
the earth is
rapidly cooling
as we pass through
galactic cloud
matter
and the increased
celestial electricity
is raising the
magma flows
in their underwater
chambers
sparking discontent
among the nations
I would rather die
than never write
poetry
again by lamplight
and I will die
that is what you
do not understand,
being a god
I am a woman
tied to Ithaca
and I am mortal.
II.
I know I promised
to marry you,
Apollo
but I did not
foresee
how punishing you
would become
when I broke my
pledge
and left you to
languish
on a smoldering
Olympus
in the volcanic
winter
of your snowball
heart
I was a lovestruck
silly girl
who thought she
could see
into the future and
you said
“Go
ahead, Cassandra
I have a roadmap”
I looked and looked
but didn't see it
or maybe I looked
and couldn't do it
or maybe I saw how
cold Greece would
become
in the immediate
future
and democrat and Jew that I am
I couldn't handle
your antisemitism
your hatred of all
Muslims
and even those
"barbaric" Christians
though you still pretend
to be Orthodox
If anything Greece
was lost
to those
black-cloaked priests
who are paid by the
state
and thus subjugate
and are subjugated
Strange country:
You blame the
Ottomans
and I don't blame
you a wit
but someday you
guys
have to get over it
or
start making your
own clothing
Everywhere
everywhere
the labels scream
“Made
in Turkey”
“Made
in Germany”
Let the wealthy of Greece
Let the wealthy of Greece
rise up and invest
in their
countrymen!
Throw off the
bureaucratic
shackles of church
and state!
Don't believe me?
Well there's the
rub
for me to see the
horrors
and no one to
believe what I tell them
just as I didn't
believe you
your narrow road
your climate
litanies
or your love
It's fast karma or
some such
religious nonsense
more blasphemy
more cannibalism
more 21st-century
anarchy
We both see the
frozen future
but no one can hear
us.
III.
I was a tree
frozen in bark
neglected, celibate
roots of sadness so
deep
the sky's tears
could not reach
them
Apollo chased and
ravaged me
and I became a
woman
named Daphne
I blossomed with
sea pine in the
fall
orange blossom in
the spring
swooning under my
own salted perfume
I climbed hills
I sought beauty
I read until my
eyes
grew red and bleary
Every
cell vivant
my skin bronzed
my heart charged
with a lightning
rod
For a brief moment
it made me young
and the world
became turquoise
water, light and
sulphur
burnt fields
paradisiacal
mountains
endless groves of
olive
and the language
that entered
my ears was music
and I tried hard to
learn it
but it was never
enough
Oh make me a tree
again
Oh make me a statue
now that Apollo has
gone
and taken with him
his words of love
Life is complicated
and then it is not
and then it breaks
apart
into a new
composite.
Photo: Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan
Photo: Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan
