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". . . compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses . . ."
---Hebrews 12:1

Yes, I thought that I might be his Muse.
He said the poem was an event in Making,
a moment when the shadows are cast back,
and the soul can enter only nakedly
and (as I heard it said, once) not ashamed.
He said that domination and Submission
were double pillars that raised up the vision.
They raised up only me, from chains suspended.
He said that, blindfolded, I was the blank
page on which he would recompose the world.
His inked pen was the flogger laid on me;
his syllables, the welts he raised on me;
his gasps, between swings, and mine, between screams,
became the measure of that ghastly line.
The constant leather crack that raped my ears
set patterns---one was rhyme; and one, my tears,
sealed in hot candle wax on my bare feet.
But worst of all was his most palpable conceit---
the only clothing to my nakedness---
that he would be whole, when I had been broken.
In scenes like that, only those words were spoken.
He did it all without apology,
having discerned natural needs in me
(he said) to be served, then disposed, in poetry.
I came here, overwhelmed by the pure peace
that shimmers here in swirls of golden light
on pastel vistas.  Sometimes, memory
imposes itself, and then I need to cry.
At those times, comes at once my new best friend;
clad in a brocade gown of sparkling green,
and on her fairest brow, an laurel wreath.
I kneel down at her shoeless, stockinged feet,
and let the water flow fast from my eyes,
as, gently, her slim fingers groom my hair
so cruelly pulled and twisted in the life
I lived on earth.  Although she never knew
such perverse lusts, she knows the soothing words
to say---that he can never hurt me here
nor damage, more, my torn and halting soul.
Her quiet Florentine inflections soothe
the sorrows that berate me; laid to rest,
my rank unworthiness, and nagging shame.
Oh, in her friendship, I am amply blest;
and, I should mention, Beatrice is her name.
 
Starward
 
[jlc]