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On the furthest edge of the coldest corner of the steppe, a herder lived in a yurt with his three
children. The herder’s wife had died years before, so it was just the four of them who huddled around the great stove in the tent’s centre, faces blackened by soot. They were bored and achy, for when the winter bit like this no-one could go outside. For days and days they had had only each other for company and tempers, which had started out thick and mellow as yak milk, were running thin. “I wish I could check on the sheep,” fretted the youngest son, who loved the outdoors and all that breathed there. “I wish I could visit my friends,” sighed the oldest son, who enjoyed the village and all who danced there. “I wish I could trade for coffee,” grumbled the herder, who as a father thrice-over was reliant on the stuff. “What good is a fire if you’ve nothing to brew on it?” The daughter of the yurt, who was also the eldest child, opened her mouth to speak - but before she could, a great flurry of snow blew down the narrow chimney and snuffed the fire right out.! By a stroke of bad luck the father’s words had been whipped up by the north wind and carried to the Fire Maiden, a goddess much revered in those wintery parts. The herder’s thoughtless words badly offended her. ‘Mother’ – the word, to me,
Has always been my other An entity quite apart from me Until I saw her In that childhood picture Gaze gleaming, smile beaming – A reflection of what I’d been – A burning light among her siblings But to reconcile that image With the present I had been looking at the wrong place – Her eyes, in my eternity, have always been dead – I just had to look into her words Splayed across my skin – I was the princess
whose blood, spurred the winds of war to Ilium, and launched a thousand ships. To my father, I was but an answer to the Gods, a piece for appeasement. To my mother, I was first a bitter question, then a bloody cry for justice; and in between the answer that came before the question I was only a daughter, Not yet Iphigenia. The evangelists were getting louder
bending the ears of presidents but at the same time the backlash was growing They needed a sacrifice so lots were drawn and they chose Bakker he was too loud And they didn’t like his wife So they sent a temptress his way and he fell and everyone focused their eyes on him All his accumulated wealth the power of God through success through positive thinking through investing your hard earned dollars so he could spread Jim’s word disguised as His word it was all over I am someone that Death did not choose
The waters, silenced with a warning The fruit of love, dangled before my eyes A deer caught in the headlights The sins of the father, a haunting reminder That the lies of men bring the demise of the less fortunate At Aulis, I plead to you with Heaven in your eyes And Hell in my father’s I am someone that Death did not choose I am as sacred as the holy wars you wage I am as lustrous as the blade you lay on my neck on my neck the first song you memorized,
singing along, maybe snapping with the beat? Not a nursery rhyme nor lullaby and not the alphabet song. The tune you heard on the radio wormed its way into your soul so deeply, every time you hear it played, nostalgia floods your heart, a strange sense of déjà vu. Maybe you smell coconut and chlorine or even popcorn and pine trees. Memory defined by melody and love remembered within beats. The Trung sisters,
Vietnamese resistors, Fighting their country's occupation. Declared themselves queens, Repelled the Chinese, Celebrated for saving a nation. Joan of Arc, A girl with spark, Strength and guts and guile. Led France to a win, Got Charles crowned king, Then killed in a way most vile. Harriet Tubman, To freedom she ran, Then returned to fight against slavery. Served in the civil war, And freed hundreds more. Icon of liberty and bravery. We were young girls once,
posing for selfies crammed in the bathroom of the ag barn, tight t-shirts and low-waisted jeans that screamed Skipped Lunch but also We’re Too Bible Belt to Speak of Such Things, fodder for fickle fellas to philander while we prayed to the gods of Tiger Beat Magazine to reveal Which Jonas Brother We Were Most Likely to Marry. I spent hours scrutinizing the finished products when they were posted on Facebook-- every time noting how many likes my friend got as the main poster--
Emma Flannigan wasn't your average Irish country woman.
In fact, she wasn't even Irish. And yet there she stood, in her home in the small town of Ceallach, getting ready for a day at the market. She finished pinning back her mousy brown hair, exposing her thin, pale face. Although she was only 23 years old, her features were aged with grief. She had, as the towns people often said, "lost her bloom" over the last few months; slowly fading away ever since the death of her husband, Seamus. They had only moved back to his homeland there in the Irish countryside a year before the tragic accident. And now, Emma, a very English woman, had to find her life there, in their Irish home, without him. Looking in the mirror by the door on the way out, she noted her pallid complexion, and, pinching her cheeks in the hopes of color, only seemed to redden them, as if from being too long in the sun. She untied her plain white house apron, hanging it by the door and brushed her hands down her blue cotton dress, smoothing out the bunches from where the apron had been tied. Then off she walked down the road to the market place. |