OCTOBER ORCHARD

WHEN THE BELLS SING ON THE BACK PATIO I REMEMBER

How I was there the day Helga married you
yes, she married you, because you asked

I remember afterward the bells hanging
from threads, the threads themselves left
hanging, blew in the breeze.  They formed
a breezeway, a threshold crossing into an
old orchard, the pass through we all
passed through to gather
awaiting one important thread about to knot―
not left hanging, because she said yes

I had gone that day to the swap meet
I found my own set of bells
they too hang above now in threads
dangling just off my patio

as time goes by, threads have broken
bells have cracked and accumulate
on the ground in a basket below where
they once hung but more still hang
in the upper breezeway tiding through
windy weather just how well tied
some gatherings & knots truly are.

©2015 October Orchard Song stephaniepope mythopoetry.com

TUESDAY POETRY "Nykteris"

Nykteris

“… from dusk they take their name, and flit by night" ~Ovid*

From dusk, the hour, stolen stole
a means by which a shape is lost & hid
Phersephassa** stolen, too, once green
and new and hid from light
now everything awakens to the flight

a voice begins as if in wings
tiny sounds in parchment stir and sting
tiny-sized and Hermes-seized declare
the time is now to climb and ride the air
they fashion what a shape in loss returns
dusk, the hour, stolen, stolen bright
and everything awakens to the night 

©2013 “Nykteris” stephanie pope mythopoetry.com


notes

 *Ovid, “Metamorphoses” 4. 422 ff
 **Perse’phone, a goddess giving  meaning a subtle manner
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=persephone-bio-1)
(Περσεφόνη), in Latin Proserpina, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. (Hom. Il. 14.326, Od. 11.216; Hes. Theog. 912, &c. ; Apollod. 1.5.1.) Her name is commonly derived from φερειν φόνον, "to bring" or "cause death," and the form Persephone occurs first in Hesiod (Hes. Th. 913; comp. Horn. Hymm. in Cer. 56), the Homeric form being Persephoneia. But besides these forms of the name, we also find Persephassa, Phersephassa, Persephatta, Phersephatta. Pherrephassa, Pherephatta, and Phersephoneia, for which various etymologies have been proposed. The Latin Proserpina, which is probably only a corruption of the Greek, was erroneously derived by the Romans from proscrpere,"to shoot forth." (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2.26.) Being the infernal goddess of death, she is also called a daughter of Zeus and Styx (Apollod. 1.3.1 ); in Arcadia she was worshipped under the name of Despoena, and was called a daughter of Poseidon, Hippius, and Demeter, and said to have been brought up by the Titan Anytus. (Paus. 8.37.3, 6, 25.5.) Homer describes her as the wife of llades, and the formidable, venerable, and majestic queen of the Shades, who exercises her power, and carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead, along with her husband. (Hom. Od. 10.494, 11.226, 385, (134, Il. 9.457, 569; comp. Apollod. 1.9.15.) Hence she is called by later writers Juno Inferna, Auerna, and Stygia (Verg. A. 6.138; Ov. Met. 14.114), and the Erinnyes are said to have been daughters of her by Pluto. (Orph. Hymn. 29. 6, 6, 70. 3.) Groves sacred to her are said by Homer to be in the western extremity of the earth, on the frontiers of the lower world, which is itself called the house of Persephone. (Od. 10.491, 509.)