Recognition!
Some mornings, it is a good idea to check e-mail. This morning, unexpectedly, a message arrived from M.E. Hope, the chair of the Oregon State Poetry Association's Spring 2007 contest informing me I'd won an Honorable Mention in the Members Only category for my poem, "Leda Before the Swan." This is the category that requires a poem of six to twelve lines, no more, no less but it can be any form and on any subject. Maybe this poem appeals because it is a bit of a poet's poem, an homage to William Butler Yeats' classic, Leda and the Swan, long a favorite of mine in spite of its subject matter: Zeus appearing to Leda as a swan and then raping her.
Below is my offering on the subject:
Leda Before the Swan
Before his shuddering fall into her arms,
his wings thrusting, their edgy caress,
she saw not the feathers, not the Olympian swagger,
but bathtubs and goat skins, her husband’s nightly pursuit.
Later, she’ll say that’s why she didn’t hear
the whirr, the dizzy miles he soared across the Aegean.
She was singing herself a song and threading
her braid into a coil at the nape of her neck.
She dabbed attar on wrists, weighty with their bangles,
and settled into the hammock for her afternoon nap.
