Terpsichore's Lovesong
Lay your head
upon my breast
let mending fingers roam,
yesterdays, regrets long fled
on the dancing journey home
Kiss me here
before we part
never to meet again,
freed from life as freed from fear
broken before we could bend.
Still the heart
Still the heart
is sent for song,
voice on the skyblue wind;
still I feel we’ll never part
unless it's to meet again.
December 2011
This is a companion piece to Thalia's Nocturne
Image; Terpsichore, by Jean Marc Nattier, 1739 Oil on canvas
courtesy wikimedia commons
Whatever the heartbreaks between birth and death, the song tries to heal them all. If any song can heal, this one can, it is so beautifully melodious and dancing, fine muse.
ReplyDeletesmiles...what a delight to read, never to part again except to meet again...i like that...tender, sensual...i like...
ReplyDeletehey great job tonight as well...
Thanks, boss, and Ruth. After that darker witchy piece, this one decided it had to come out and even the score.
ReplyDeleteNever to meet again caused me pause and then I thought it was a parting of death which explains the last two stanzas. I love "voice on the skyblue wind."
ReplyDeleteTakes me back to my first slow dance, junior high, going round and round and round to "I Found Love On A Two Way Street (And Lost It On A Lonely Highway)": I'd done it on a dare from my older brother, and I was dizzy with the turns, the smell of Wind Song perfume, the utter proximity of a female body, closer than ever to mine ... So many times on and off and on and off that dancing floor which belongs to Ariadne but whose muse is Terpsichore. Sweet, sweet memory indeed: "we'll never part / unless it's to meet again." Awwwww. -- Brendan
ReplyDelete@B: Ah--the junior high dance. I didn't go to many at Nichols, but I think I made one, where we were dancing to something treacly (but surely appropriately mythical)like Bobby Rydell's 'Diana'--or maybe it was "He's a Rebel..." One of the little beads in my box in the attic is the idea that all love is fungible, morphs and flows yet is what it is, and stays true to its purpose, (which is, of course, the dance...)Thanks for reading, B.
ReplyDeleteLovely write - especially like the first stanza.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas!
Anna :o]
I love the "voice on the skyblue wind".......and the lovely lilt of the lines.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sherry & Hyper. Merry Christmas to you both.
ReplyDeleteI love the form of this poem and the beautiful words. It resonates of the best of classic poetry!
ReplyDeleteI brought my simple mind with me as I always do. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI like it when you write related pieces. This one sort of sways this way and then that, ending, and then refusing to end. It's lovely.
Just so lilting and lovely, hedgewitch. I loved it.
ReplyDeleteClassic and fits well with the pic. Has my heart singing.
ReplyDeletea lovesong for the ages! beautiful and the ending is sublime!
ReplyDeletewishing you a very merry Christmas and hopes that 2012 will be more than kind to you! ♥
A lovely forward pulse to this poem, Hedge.
ReplyDeleteSimple words with a deeper effect.
Picture certainly fits the poem.
Lady Nyo
I think it's hilarious -- and utterly mysterious -- that we both hit the same junior high school dance floor some years apart. Did you get dance lessons as part of gym class? And were you admonished, as we were, to make sure those hands stayed where they were supposed to? Was Terpsichore where those hands started, or where they tried to end up. Or both, I wonder ... B.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks all--and Merry Christmas to you.
ReplyDelete@B: Yes, we did get dance lessons in gym class--but being girls, in our little blue one piece short outfits with bloomer legs (!)that would mortify modern youth, we did not get the hands part, just the "let him lead" part. (Maybe that's why you had to get that admonition? So we wouldn't be led astray?)
History is mystery, my friend. I'm afraid the style of dance I eventually got into owed more to Dionysus than Terpsichore--more like the funky chicken than the foxtrot, more bacchanal than ballroom. ;-) I never broke down and bought the go-go boots, though.
this has a very nostalgic, balladic old-time feel to it which is very nice. Suits the image very well.
ReplyDeleteThanks Luke--it's meant to feel classic--but I would think my OLN poem would be more up your alley. This is awfully old school.
ReplyDeleteI like the sweet piece.. specially the second verse. Actually the entire poem resonated with me ~
ReplyDelete