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.]

The Ever-Changing Music of Life

There is a well-known series of twelve novels by the British author Anthony Powell, called A Dance to the Music of Time. I've never read any of the books in that series, but the title intrigues me. Earthly time is a series of dances in which our lives are segments. Sometimes life is polyphonic, a complicated fugue in which some phrases stand out and some are less important, and there is a sort of relentless force driving all the voices forward together, disparate as they are. Other times, life is a homophonic 4/4, vertical, its harmonies and rhythms more aligned, ordered—one hesitates to say "predictable," but sometimes it is, whether the tempo is allegro or andante. And then sometimes we find ourselves dancing a slow dance, a sarabande, almost static, but not really—there is always an underlying meter, and we keep moving, even if it's only in a circle—the circular meter of three to the bar.



Sarabande

Nothing-time is a sober pace,
     A solemn sarabande;
Its days step with reluctant grace,
     Yet fear to stop or stand.

Nothing-time has a halting beat,
     As though it hoped to hear
That chord whose consonance so sweet
     Charms even Charon's ear.

Mark the meter, three to the bar,
     But then—there is the rest—
Just space enough to hang a star,
     A quaver, brief but blest.              (March 2008)

 

"Sarabande" © 2008 Leticia Austria. First published in The Eclectic Muse.

Regret? No, Gratitude

I'm a creature of nostalgia, I admit. Cherishing the past, wrapping its memories round me like a comfortable quilt, is a part of my character that informs almost everything I do: writing poetry, journaling, analyzing the present. I have never been a planner of my own future, a weakness in some people's eyes, I suppose; but I've always been one to take life a day at a time and confine my worrying to what's on my plate at the moment. Right now, I can't really think beyond simply being here for my mother and her needs. Her grief for my father is still deep, though she seldom speaks of it, and I know my company affords her some comfort - that, and baking up batches of cookies and one cake after another.

Many of my dreams take place in the apartment I had in Houston, in the Allen House. In all these dreams, I return there after some absence to find the place either in a shambles, or broken into by burglars who have left the place nearly empty. I don't need Jung to tell me the significance of these dreams, nor do I need him to tell me what prompted me to write the poem "Regret":

     I've lost the key to every house I've owned,
     but I recall the way to all of them
     as though the multi-layered years between us
     never were.  I still could navigate
     around the furnishings with eyes shut tight
     and not disturb a thing.  Although the keys
     are lost to me, like all my schoolgirl clothes,
     the sounds of every house are still as clear
     as bubbling laughter from a baby's lips,
     and all their scents still linger on the threads
     of tattered memories.  The houses stand
     as if in wait for me, but I must stay
     forever on the outside looking in.

I often think I should change the title of that poem, because it isn't so much regret I harbor for the past, but a grateful affection that helps me deal with the present. Though I sometimes feel like a slightly dowdy, genteel spinster penning memories on pages that will inevitably yellow and turn to dust, I can be happy in the knowledge that I've made good use of my life and my gifts. And every night when I kiss my mother and wish her a good sleep, I can be happy knowing I am of some use to her.

["Regret" was first published in WestWard Quarterly]

Note from the author: After the writing of this post and the publication of the poem, I officially changed the name of the poem to "Retrospect."

The Beginning and the End

     I wrote in another post how my poems are an extension of my journal, a true chronicle of my inner life. Here is the first poem I wrote in 2011:


OPTIMISM

Be captivated by the light,
the hidden colors in its whitest ray,
the gleanings gathered in the bright of day,
and take them with you into night.

Seek out the modest gleam of dusk,
the varied values of its subtle hues,
the finished golds beneath the muddled blues,
and spread them out upon the dust.


And here is the last of 2011:


AWAITING DAWN

I dwell in Possibility. ~ Emily Dickinson

I find this shifting space
a questionable habitation. Hope
remains a nocturne scarcely audible;
I scratch the notes into my book of songs
with feathers sharpened by a bitter blade.
What prayers are wrought inside this cage of night
become a liquor brewed from sorrow's rain,
libation for the hosts that crowd my bed,
that carol with the confidence of those
who've passed the night of possibility
and woke to tell the tale. Theirs are the songs
my pen stays poised above the page to write.
However many feathers used and tossed,
I know the dawn will never come until
these songs are done.


     Of course, I wrote this poem shortly after my father died. Here's hoping that 2012 will see more poems like "Optimism" issue from my pen!

["Optimism" first appeared in the online journal The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry]

A Poet's Voice

     When I first started writing poetry, I had absolutely no intention of getting it published. Poetry to me was simply a way of exercising my creative muscles, playing with words and forms. More importantly, it was another form of journaling, venting, purging -- and it still is, which is why all my poems are autobiographical. The difference between venting through prose (journaling) and venting through verse is that the discipline of writing verse gives me time to be a bit more detached about whatever it is I'm venting. Verse demands that I mull over the selection of words, the harmony of sounds, line breaks, punctuation, the arc of the poem; in doing so, I'm better able to examine objectively the particular emotion that I'm trying to convey, under the therapeutic microscope of poetic craft. When journaling, I simply pour out stuff without really thinking, without reasoning, without worrying about craft. Both of these purgative methods are beneficial, in different ways and for different reasons, yielding different results.
     If my primary motivation was to be published and read by a wide public, then, yes, I would attempt to turn outward for my subjects and not stay so much in my own head and heart. If I were really concerned about giving editors what they want today, i. e., "universal" poems rather than deeply personal, "confessional" ones, I would turn to nature, politics, or social issues for poetic inspiration. The truth is, I seem to belong to the confessional (albeit "formalist") school, but (I hope) without the extreme angst-ridden, suicidal overtones. If you really stop to think about it, though -- isn't all poetry "confessional"? Even when writing politically, how can one do so without delving into one's own personal politics? What is "universal," anyway? This universe, this society, this very world, are made up of individual people with individual opinions and feelings. Or should feelings come into play at all? How on earth can they not?
     At the encouragement of my sister, I did eventually decide to submit my poems for publication and am happy about my modest success so far. As long as there are those precious few publications whose editors welcome "personal" poetry, I will continue to send out my ventings in verse. According to the old maxim, I should write what I know. Well, what I know best is my own life, so that's what I write. And I think it's what I write best.

          Autobiography

          I only write that which I know;
          I only know that which I live,
          And life will seldom lie.
          But then, I cannot always know
          The secrets of the life I live,
          So I myself can lie.

          This much I promise: I will tell
          The truth as it appears to me;
          And if I tell it slant,
          Then truth is only time's to tell.
          But even time may not tell me,
          So truth, to me, is slant.

     Well, maybe that isn't my best, but you get my drift.