{"id":9603,"date":"2020-09-26T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T11:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=9603"},"modified":"2020-09-26T12:49:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T11:49:00","slug":"poetry-mischa-willet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2020\/09\/26\/poetry-mischa-willet\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry: Mischa Willett"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medea\u2019s Hymn<\/strong>
\nfrom Ovid<\/em><\/p>\n

O guardian of the dark, keeper of creeping
\nshadows, o night I\u2019m standing in…
\nAnd you, timid stars, who wait for her arrival
\nto shine…<\/p>\n

And you, Hecate, Hecate, Hecate,<\/p>\n

who knows and keeps the herbal secrets,
\nthe potion\u2019s potency, the rites of sorcery…
\nAnd you, Earth, who grows the elements,
\nyou world of winds and waters, you gods
\nof woods and watchers of the dead, I need
\nyou all.<\/p>\n

It is through your power that I have reversed
\nthe river\u2019s current as the mute banks gaped.
\nHaven\u2019t we stilled the trashing seas,
\nconvened councils of clouds, bagged and shook
\nout the very winds? With words I\u2019ve split
\na writhing serpent, drawn down boulders,
\nplucked an oak as easily as a flower. I can
\nshake the very mountains and open
\nthe mouth of the ground in a groan. The shades
\nI can make walk from their tombs. Even you,
\nnoon, I can drop in this stream like a white pebble.
\nThe sun, my grandfather\u2019s carriage,
\nI can sing pale. I can staunch the wound
\neven of pink dawn.<\/p>\n

But it is you, who, helping me,
\ntarnished the bronze of the bulls and bent
\ntheir necks to plow. And you who tangled
\nthe serpent\u2019s scions and saved my Jason
\nin the ring. And it is you who, singing
\nthrough him, put that watchful and wise
\nbeast to his first sleep, and so brought
\nthe golden fleece\u2014power of powers\u2014
\nto Greece.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a Dark Wood<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why am I so jealous of the duck
\nThat has been swallowed by the wolf?
\nBecause he has slippers
\nand a peg on which to hang his coat
\nand a rug on which to place the slippers?<\/p>\n

In the same way, I wish I was the bunny,
\nalways, but especially in Spring,
\nbecause I think of his hook,
\nand the tree he\u2019s in
\nand the snow outside
\nand all the hawks he doesn\u2019t
\nhear hunting, until he does.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Holding Pattern
\n<\/strong>\u201cJust then a plane jumped up and ripped the sky to shreds\u201d
\n<\/em>-K. Vonnegut<\/p>\n

The F-12 fighter jet jumps
\nthrough a hole in the wall
\nat the caf\u00e9, at the museum, at the lunch
\nI am enjoying, at the moment
\nI am thinking of saying the bit about
\nmy animal\u2019s charging hard
\nand my man\u2019s restraining grip\u2014
\nthe whip he uses to keep
\nthe beast at bay\u2014
\nhow his forearms tire, how
\nhis fingers ply at the leash.<\/p>\n

The line was its own pastiche
\nof images\u2014the broken clause, dramatic
\npauses meant to make the thing sound
\nex temporae\u2014like I hadn\u2019t come
\nup with it the day before, like I
\nhadn\u2019t been dying to say it for its sharp
\n\u201car\u201d sound from \u201chard\u201d and how that slammed
\ninto \u201ccharged\u201d and made the thing
\nsound sexed and desperate, as indeed,
\nI meant it.<\/p>\n

This before the razor-winged marten
\nwhose dive-bomb corkscrew threw an element
\nof reverie into an afternoon I\u2019d mapped
\nout as heartful, profound, became
\nin the turn, her bright laughing\u2019s
\nlittle explosions on the ground.<\/p>\n

Feature Image: J. M. W. Turner’s Vision of Medea (1828).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medea\u2019s Hymn from Ovid O guardian of the dark, keeper of creeping shadows, o night I\u2019m standing in… And you, timid stars, who wait for her arrival to shine… And you, Hecate, Hecate, Hecate, who knows and keeps the herbal secrets, the potion\u2019s potency, the rites of sorcery… And you, Earth, who grows the elements, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[5306,6207,6208,6933],"class_list":["post-9603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-kurt-vonnegut","tag-mischa-willet","tag-mischa-willet-poetry","tag-ovid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}