Three Lives

Three years ago, I was inspired by Christina Rossetti's sonnet "A Triad," which conveys the effects of love on three different women: a fallen woman, a love-starved spinster, and a wife.

     A Triad by Christina Rossetti

     Three sang of love together: one with lips
          Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
     Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
          And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
          Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
     And one was blue with famine after love,
          Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
     The burden of what those were singing of.
     One shamed herself in love; one temperately
          Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
     One famished died for love. Thus two of three
          Took death for love and won him after strife;
     One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
          All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

I took the "triad" concept and applied it, in a poem of my own, to one woman who passes through three distinct life phases. I guess it's pretty obvious that the woman in the poem is me.

I tried to make use of symbolism, some of which is repeated (ivory, silver, dancing, robe, flesh). This was intentional, in order to give a hint before the final stanza that the three women are actually one.

     Three Lives

     There was a woman long ago
     Whose soul was buried in the snow;
     Her heart was kept inside a box
     Of ivory, locked with silver locks;
     And since her modest robe was torn,
     She used her flesh to keep her warm.
She danced until the stars grew cold and pale,
Believing dance would serve where love might fail.

     Another, disillusioned, cast
     Aside the falseness of her past,
     And laid her soul upon the breast
     Of Him Who is our final rest;
     The whiteness of the robe she wore
     Absolved the crimson scars she bore.
Her steps were silent on the ancient stone;
She held the world inside and danced alone.

     And then a third, who found a soul
     To flame her own, who found the whole
     Of Heaven in a noble love
     That raised her mind to things above;
     A love that lived unrealized
     In touch, a fleshless sacrifice.
She kept her secret in an ivory box
Until her song unlocked the silver locks.

     Three lives -- of flesh, of soul, of heart --
     Three different women stood apart;
     Yet, bound by blood and bone, each knew
     The three were one: a woman who
     Was born but once, yet lived life thrice,
     As toy of man, then bride of Christ,
And then as troubadour placed out of time,
Who eased her heart's complaint with salving rhyme.           (May 2009)


["Three Lives" was first published in The Eclectic Muse.]