Chantress

I

(While she took root, before acquiring wings
as told by a local poet.)

She spoke under rafters,
her throat tuned
by the shallow reed and rock sparrow,
her body risen
from a clay harp, this white rib
of Erin.

She danced on floorboards
that were warped and receding
from their rusted nails.

The sea wind
had loosened their grip
while stregthening her spirit,
pale siren, bonded
servant to The Banshee.

Her hand unlatched the door
and she left the tavern
on a damp morning when
the birds and leaves took wing
heading toward the wave,
casting the fields to Winter.

No one knew where she went
but felt her presence missing --

flint from the tinder box,
said the men,

wild herbs from the hearth,
said the women.

No one knew how she traveled
but some slipped in their dreams
over luggage patched with stickers.

One quite torn, letters fading
revealed half a name,
half a place called Village.

II

( Years after she landed in New York,
a memory told in her own words)


Once In a Greenwich moment,
my hair was the red incense
of Bohemia, wild rose and cedar
scenting the village stage
while I performed.

Words lingered on my tongue
igniting the poem's wick,
that flammable line
of myth or protest.

Sometimes I sat
on a stool feeling more
solidarity with oak
than a crowd of strangers
who were dazed, spellbound
by their own love beads and smoked
cannabis leaf.

Sometimes I stood
looming over souls
who truly felt --

the slow pour of tea
as my voice poured it,

the slant of shoulder bones
read like stone runes
by the sun,

as I lit the star
telling secrets of
the woman and fate.

_______________________________________________

Note -- The painting is called, "Actress" by American artist, William Whitaker.
www.williamwhitaker.com.