But a dream, yet a vision … she
haunts my mind, this sponge,
a saturated spirit. Engulfed in
crescent crests, rendered flotsam.
I drown within hazel moons.
Arresting is her beauty … she
commands the winds ? her messengers ?
assails the dawn, her morning squire.
Apart from her, will not
the stars mourn?
Immaculate grace, the divine … she
slithers in silhouette shadows. Soft
warm creature, embodying Night. Her form:
a lust. Her touch: a covet. Her word:
a siren’s passion.
Yet betrothed … she
yearns another. Her untouched fruit:
a forbidden envy. I rant, I rent, I die.
I long to die with her. Is there
some other? Some graven idol?
No, none shall replace nor I be
…with she.
author’s notes
“She” is an important poem for me. It marks a time when I was going through some tough rejection. I didn’t recuperate very well either, but this poem helped to relieve some of the frustration.
The first stanza is the usual preoccupation.
The second describes this preoccupation. I liken her beauty to the wind and the sun, blustery and brilliant. I set her up on an impossibly high pedestal, so that without her, my very world would not exist (“the stars mourn”).
This pedestal is my undoing. In making her out to be “divine,” I’m crushed to find that she is taken with someone else. The contrast of stanzas 3 and 4 is a clear divide (“her touch: a covet,” “her untouched fruit: a forbidden envy”).
The term “rent” is archaic. It means to tear the clothing. My grief is complete with the phrase “…I die. I long to die with her.” This has a double meaning. Dying is also an older term meaning to have relations with someone. Yet, I also use it to mean physical death. “Graven idol” comes from the Book of Exodus where Moses gives the Ten Commandments. One of them was “Thou shalt have no graven image before Me,” which meant that there were to be no other gods or images of pagan gods among the Israelite people. I use the term her to again describe the altar upon which I placed this woman.
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