Starlings

by Jo Walton

  Built the whisper of wind through the ripening corn

  Dust devils rose spiralling, dancing along,

  And the weight of the sun built the power of his song.

  Every female in town then, from puberty on,

  Ran off to the park, every woman was gone

  Teenagers to grannies, run wild on the hill

  And they couldn’t be caught and they wouldn’t stay still.

  The high school half-empty, the churches bereft

  Whole town half-deserted, no woman was left,

  And no one could stop them, and no one would dare,

  Till Theo found out his own mother was there.

  His mother was gone, so he marched to the jail:

  “Make them stop, I demand it! My poor mother, Gail!”

  And Leo smiled slyly and said, “Would you see

  What wild women look like, when once they get free?

  This town tossed out my mother without half a thought.

  You wouldn’t drink with me, afraid to get caught,

  Daren’t dance the wild dances, intoxicate, oh

  No never in this town, I know you won’t go.”

  “Don’t call me a coward,” said Theo. “My mother

  Needs rescuing now—be a cousin, a brother.”

  “You need my help now? Well such aid has a cost.”

  “I’ll pay it,” said Theo, and thus he was lost.

  “It’s hard to get near them, so dress as a girl.

  Let me make up your face, prink your hair with a curl.

  They won’t suspect, cousin, drink this and advance,

  And you’re sure to catch sight of the girls in their dance.”

  “I must find my mother.” “But what about mine?”

  “Your mother, Semila? Is she here? That’s fine.”

  “Take my keys, you should drive, coz,” is all Leo said.

  Theo drove along Main Street, blazed straight through the red.

  Then the drink in his veins and the madness took hold,

  Filled with fear for his mom, and the things he’d been told,

  And Leo directing: “Turn left here. Now stop.

  Get out of the car. Dance, don’t look like a cop.”

  Theo danced as he went, and they tore him apart,

  His own mother’s fingernails ripped out his heart

  And she woke to discover her deed, poor sad Gail.

  In the end it’s a punishment quite out of scale.

  Don’t bring on disaster refusing to bend

  When people screw up try to act like a friend

  Let humans be human and choose their own fate,

  Accept the small madness to ward off the great.

  —March 13, 2016

  Hades and Persephone

  You bring the light clasped round you, and although

  I knew you’d bring it, knew it as I waited,

  Knew as you’d come that you’d come cloaked in light

  I had forgotten what light meant, and so

  This longed for moment, so anticipated,

  I stand still, dazzled by my own delight.

  I see you, and you see me, and we smile

  And your smile says you are as pleased as me

  With everything and nothing still to say

  All that we’ve saved and thought through all this time

  Boils down to affirmation now as we

  Stand here enlightened in my realm of grey.

  Cerberus wags his solitary tail,

  And though the dust of Hell lies round our feet

  Your flowers are already sprouting through.

  “You came,” “I said I would,” “You didn’t fail,”

  “And you’re still here,” “Of course. We said we’d meet.”

  “Yes,” “Yes!” “You’re really here! “And so are you!”

  We don’t say yet that you will have to go

  And Hell return inevitably black

  Your flowers fade when parted from your tread

  Though this is something we both surely know,

  As certain as you come, you must go back,

  And I remain alone among the dead.

  They say I snatched you from the world above

  Bound you with pomegranates, cast a spell

  Bribed you with architecture. It’s not so.

  Friendship is complicated, life is, love,

  Your work the growing world, my task is Hell

  You come back always, always have to go.

  But here and now, this moment, we can smile,

  Speak and be heard, this moment we can share

  And laugh, and help each other to be great,

  And talk aloud together, all worthwhile,

  Our work, our worlds, and all we really care,

  Each word shines golden, each thought worth the wait.

  And Hell’s poor souls whirl round us as they glide

  Off up to Lethe to begin again,

  On to new lives, new dawns beyond Hell’s night.

  We walk among your flowers, side by side,

  Such joys we share are worth a little pain.

  You come back. And you always bring the light.

  —April 2014

  The Death of Petrarch

  He fell asleep, reading in Cicero

  And as he turned the page, in his last sleep

  He found it didn’t end, so he could keep

  On reading the De Gloria, and know.

  Forgetting meals, forgetting pain and age,

  One book led to another, all made new,

  Laid out before him, beautiful and true.

  In such delight he’d greet each fresh-turned page.

  And there lies Homer, that most glorious peak,

  Poliziano’s Homer, and it said

  This was a Florentine who knew his Greek,

  The Pope was back in Rome, and he was dead,

  The world renewed, and given tongue to speak.

  Sing, Goddess, Petrarch’s joy in what he read.

  —November 8, 2015

  Advice to Loki

  Some other cultures’ thoughts about revenge:

  Some say it is a dish best eaten cold, but not

  An option for your nature, is it? Plan and plot

  But always you are leaping wildfire hot.

  Marcus Aurelius said the best revenge

  Is to be unlike Odin—excuse me, be unlike

  The one who dealt the injury, in this case, Odin.

  That doesn’t help. (And he was first to strike.)

  Others say when you plan revenge to dig two graves.

  You did that. He is bound as much as you.

  But maybe there were smoother ways to go,

  You bound your own pain ever open too.

  For oaths will only bind the honour-bound

  Which Odin never was, not that I heard

  He goes for his advantage every time.

  You at least kept the letter of your word.

  All right, you did kill Baldur, his best son.

  But who’d have thought he’d go this far for it?

  He’d got your children too, all three of them.

  . . . But did this really help the slightest bit?

  You can’t make people want you, you can make

  Them do things, sometimes, but desire

  Of any kind, for anything, is inside them,

  And not compellable by ice or fire.

  I’m sorry. I have also snarled on this

  Too often, and with less excuse than you,

  And lies and cunning mostly make it worse,

  We have to face it that it’s really true.

  Some people say revenge is living well—

  I’ve found it sometimes works to go away

  And be more awesome. Let him sit alone,

  To watch your wildfires leaping as you play.

  Of course, you’re still alone, and you still care.

  But honestly, in time may come new gods.

 
(I found one, though I never thought I would

  A better one than him.) There are some odds.

  And even grimly going on and on

  Can work, because of petty joys that life

  (I’m not a Viking) showers freely down,

  Creating, conversation, trees, fresh strife.

  You think you’re equals, but that isn’t so.

  You’re better than he is. Like yourself more.

  You’re worth it, and he’s such a selfish prick.

  Go do new things, burn brighter than before.

  It hurts to think of you a ball of hate

  Waiting to burn the whole world down to black

  Just because Odin sucks. Let go and weep,

  Heal Yggdrasil, get free, then don’t look back.

  —May 2013

  Ask to Embla

  When we stood mute, rooted,

  We grew side by side

  Shared storms and seasons,

  Drank from deep waters,

  Flowered and fruited,

  Washed by the same tides

  Swayed for the same winds

  knowing no reasons.

  Three gods came out of the dark

  Warming and changing and moving and shaping

  Filling us up with their spark

  I can step from this shore

  This edge where we belonged before

  To turn and see and speak and know

  As root and branch knew how to grow.

  As flesh transforms from wood,

  I turn to you to start to speak

  Believing I’ll be understood:

  “This world is a wonder,

  The gods are a wonder,

  And you . . .”

  The words, the worlds, and we

  New made in new sun’s icy dawn

  The slate-flecked sea, the very stones

  Transmuted out of Ymir’s bones,

  The landscape, like us, all newborn

  As we were turned from tree . . .

  The same, and not the same, and you

  Are gloriously different too

  Now I can move and see and learn,

  My life-spark blazes and I burn

  To speak that you can answer me,

  To say: “The world, the wonders, gods,

  Our transformation,” urgently,

  “And you . . .”

  And time and change and hope and all

  The stories that have yet to be,

  Together, reaching out, to build

  All that a man who was a tree

  Can dream, a name, a home, a hall,

  A saga, and you in them all,

  You, who are like the gods,

  Like me, a wonder, and free-willed.

  (And standing staring back at me

  Though all the world stands bare to see.)

  I draw my new-won breath to speak:

  “The world’s full of wonders,

  The future’s a wonder

  The gods are a wonder

  And you . . .”

  —May 2013

  Three Bears Norse

  An old home, a bear home, remote from human-haunts

  Wall-girt and weather-warded, where ones wise in woodcraft

  Lick into new life, a baby, a bear cub,

  Safe among saplings, far in the forest.

  Till one comes slyly, girlchild, goldilocks,

  Soft-handed, secret-seeker, pamperling, pretty one,

  “No!” never heard she, dancing like dandelion,

  Stealing twixt tree-boughs, spies out the bear-house.

  Fast closed stands the door, all bears gone from home,

  In rushes Dandelion, door-breaker, greedy one,

  No thought spares she for holy guest-law,

  Spoiled child, undenied, heart set on plunder.

  First seizes three chairs, orderly, big to small,

  Claims each and tries each, breaking the smallest.

  Next finds the oat-slop, orderly, big to small,

  Claims each and tries each, eating the smallest.

  Onwards goes Dandelion, breaker of guest-law,

  Turning from oat-slop, yawning, bedwards,

  Slinks up the stairs, three beds, big to small,

  Orderly, tries each, sleeps on the smallest.

  Bears, heading homewards, sleepy as sun seeks sea,

  Father foremost, bear-cub beside him, bear-mother guarding rear,

  Stop still, scent surprise, coming on cautiously

  See their door open stands, blowing on wild winds.

  “Who?” asks bear-father, “Dared to sit in my chair?”

  “Who?” growls bear-mother, “Dared to sit in my chair?”

  “Who,” howls bear-cub, “Dared to sit in my chair,

  Breaking it to scattered shards? I vow revenge.”

  “Who?” asks bear-father, “Dared to taste my oat-slop?”

  “Who?” growls bear-mother, “Dared to taste my oat slop?”

  “Who,” howls bear-cub, “Dared to eat my oat-slop,

  Eating it all up? I vow revenge!”

  Upstairs, at long last, learn of the lawbreaker,

  Sleeping serenely, stuffed with their oat-slop,

  Wakes for an instant, seeing them, simpers, screams,

  Bear teeth, bear claws, shred her, sunder her,

  so perish lawbreakers.

  —August 29, 2006

  Machiavelli and Prospero

  “Piero Soderini to Niccoli Machiavelli, 13 April 1521

  My very dear Niccolo. Because the affair at Ragusa was not satisfactory to you, since Lord Prospero has asked me to recommend a man capable of managing his affairs and I know your trustworthiness and your ability, I proposed you to him . . .”

  —From: Machiavelli and His Friends:

  Their Personal Correspondence,

  translated and edited by

  James B. Atkinson and David Sices, page 334

  The Swiss. The French. His Holiness. The King of Spain.

  And now this bookish Duke back to Milan

  Just where he was before? Antonio was twice the man.

  He followed his advantage, his own gain.

  And Soderini thinks I’d work for him? That I’d enfold

  My fortunes with that duke tossed in a boat

  a scarecrow, broken staff and tattered coat,

  And I to run his state, simply for gold?

  What if it’s true there’s magic, that somehow

  He summons spirits from the earth and sky?

  And maybe he would teach those arts to me?

  Well, nothing. Let him manage now

  And I’ll stay here and write, and ponder why,

  And each of us stay in our library.

  —2013

  Cardenio

  Cardenio’s bones lie in an unmarked grave

  beyond the bonny sallie willow grove

  beside the shallow pool, none bend to grieve

  no bannered tomb, only a hallowed groove.

  Cardenio’s dreams lie in a fallen snarl

  of lost intentions, fallow, slow as snail

  the filings of his plan, through those who kneel

  or fill their glass with drams to toast his name.

  Cardenio’s play is lies and bones of dreams

  procession of the willing, swelled with drums

  with all the words unmarked, the swill, the drones

  all hollow pomp of lost forgotten dramas.

  For leaves will turn and fall as heads grow grey

  Hell holds no harrow now, and dreams decay.

  —February 5, 2013

  Ten Years Ahead: Oracle Poem

  Tomorrow’s trends swirl in a pixel glow

  Shaken and stirred and tipped in cups to go:

  Drink deep, peer close, guess what we cannot know.

  Ten years is long, and yet, not long enough,

  Changes sift down unseen, or fast and rough,

  In politics, in tech, in fights, in fluff.

&n
bsp; Upon this planet shall be constant war,

  Cod will come swarming back to Iceland’s shore,

  Today’s new fads become a facile bore.

  Nations will borrow all the banks will lend.

  We will print perfect statues, and this trend

  Will fill our houses with them, and then end.

  With oracles reopening in Greece,

  One war will end in unexpected peace,

  Others go on and on with no surcease.

  The unheard find a voice and have their say.

  China and Spain declare free marriage day.

  Democracy comes to the USA.

  Fast and ubiquitous and very neat,

  The word “computer” becomes obsolete.

  As screens you cannot touch seem incomplete.

  One thing you’d never guess will catch on here.

  Mummies and Termites cause box office fear.

  Cold fusion will be very very near.

  Old age will keep receding as we age.

  Books become beautiful on every page.

  The net will bring us friendship, hope, and rage.

  Doctors do miracles, but people die,

  We’ll get no closer to a reason why.

  We send more robots up to search the sky.

  But I’ll still write in Protext ’91,

  And you’ll get famous and have lots of fun,

  And all the best of life be just begun.

  Thus incrementally, as lives unfold,

  We’ll change unnoticing until we hold

  Our different world the same, its tale untold.

  Bad mixed with good, safe, scary, normal, strange,

  Ten years of human choice and human range,

  The only certainty in life is change.

  —May 2015

  Pax in Forma Columba

  Come, peace, descend to us now

  in the form

  of an urban pigeon.

  Underfoot everywhere, disregarded,

  fed by children on sugar biscuits,

  and by old people on hoarded crumbs.