Sevenling (Baba Yaga)

Sevenling (Baba Yaga)

Baba Yaga flies the living woods to pluck

silver tufts of wormwood, cobalt wolf'sbane,

red-cap toadstools for the little ones to suck.

Loneliness and these things made her luck:

resentment clutched and hope that's brought to naught;

and the beebalm, foxgloves, larkspur in her path

can not cure the sickness that she caught.

~April 2015

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Challenge: Frog-cups in New York City

The lively and darkly enchanting genius of Magaly Guerrero has found a perfect topic for this penultimate day of April's long haul: write a new poem that will include a flower named after an animal or a bird named after a flower. She requested a shorter poem, and I'm sure we can all appreciate that at this point, so I chose the sevenling form, inspired by the work of Russian poet Anna Ahkmatova. I also chose a Russian folktale to go with it.

You can find out more about the Slavic witch Baba Yaga, the mortar and pestle she uses to fly, and her house on chicken legs  HERE. 

Images: Baba Yaga, by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1929  public domain via wikimedia commons

Illustration of Baba Yaga by Ivan Bilibin, 1900, from the fairy tale Vasilisa The Beautiful

Public domain via wikiart.org