Romance in the New Year

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Canadian poet, Chilean poet, Elaine Stirling, Gabriela Mistral, glosa, love poems, medieval Spanish fixed verse

~~a glosa~~

Give me your hand and we will dance;
give me your hand and you will love me.
Like a single flower we will be,
like a single flower, nothing more.

—“Give Me Your Hand” (“Dáme la Mano”) by Gabriela Mistral

I dreamed of a friend in an orange checkered suit,
garish, clashing patterns, layered shades of yolk.
He milled, a hydrant, awkward midst the artsy party crowd.
Mortified, I hissed: why are you here?
He brightened. I’ve looked everywhere!
I thought I’d lost my chance.
The places I frequent are thin in godless times;
to be Olympian, hope and patience teeter.
But enough of that. Do you like my pants?
Give me your hand and we will dance.

He drew the blinds and took me in his arms.
I do not know the steps, I whined, and shuffled stiff.
They’re easy, he replied, though I often wonder if
the laurels people hang on strife
and being an enduring wife or husband
have not muddied things a bit. You see,
I do not need a maid and trust
you’ve had enough of joyless handymen
who’d nail your freedom to a tree.
Give me your hand and you will love me.

In time, my limbs began to melt
and I misplaced embarrassment. He led,
not like a general or a cold front pushing through
but like the tall straight mast of a merchant
sailing ship, with goods fair traded
in his hold. I think that we shall be,
he whispered in my ear, a golden pair
well matched, unfolding like the petals
of a rose, unprecedent, named Liberty.
Like a single flower we will be.

We woke entangled in a king-size bed
in Tuscany beneath an arbour
woven with bay laurel and anemone.
It must be spring, I reasoned, peering
‘neath the sheets at what he’d brought.
A lot! We laughed from bed to floor
and rolled across to where our view
of self-created destiny was clear.
We’d risen, both, to all that we adore
like a single flower, and nothing more.

Happy New Year, one and all!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2017
Image of Tuscan garden design by Tim Street-Porter
Translation of “Dame La Mano” by Elaine Stirling

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Robertson, dear Robertson

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#CanadianPoet, Christmas poem, Elaine Stirling, Robertson Davies, seasonal poetry, terza rima

Photo taken by Dick Loek/Toronto Star in December 1990.

—being a visit of the spirited kind with the great Canadian man of letters, in the Dantean poetic form of terza rima

I

O Robertson, dear Robertson, I dast
not trouble thee in Paradise, Nirvana,
nor in Asgard’s halls if that’s where you now cast

your mighty nets of word and mirth. I wanna
seem as erudite and clever, Heaven knows,
as you, and not some whinging prima donna,

but as mercury subsides, the windy blows
of those who’d tarnish what is silver and sublime
of this great time are getting up my nose,

attempting to convince me it’s a crime
or mark of low intelligence to cheer
what’s goodly and expanding to a prime

of human understanding. With your clear
and unobstructed view of where we’re headed
and my obstinate refusal to adhere

to doom’s dark drivel, I am wedded
to the notion that together we might salvage
something priceless from the leaded

and corrupt events reported by the savage
and vindictive, by the weary and obstructive,
by the arguers whose logic seeks to ravage

all that’s mystical and unexplained. It’s relative,
I know, that yay and nay together must reside
in every possibility, but their order is subjective.

Am I right, or do I labour with false pride?

II

O mortal, winsome mortal, such delight
I take in finding you again with Thor’s great hammer
pitted ‘gainst depressives’ native right

to cringe beneath your cheerful yammer,
seeking common ground and seldom finding,
both of you reduced to wincing stammer.

Where is the proof? demands the grinding
intellect. I do not care, retorts the sprite
whose visage to the cynic is full blinding.

The passing fact, experienced, is right
but only in the moment to the blood and brains
of that to whom the truth gave light.

The gap between the witness who explains
her wonder with insistence to the rest
learns swiftly what it means to “take great pains”.

There is scant gain in it. You’re blessed,
make no mistake, but cursive souls
like yours who flow too easily ingest

the poisons of heredity. The holes
of graves preceding you contain no tales
worth digging up again. Their bells have tolled.

All life is made to vivify. What this day fails,
ignored, tomorrow proudly shows her worth.
Who keeps their wit and chin up, paradise regales.

In this tendering season of light’s rebirth,
rest easy. Good abounds on Heaven and Earth!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2017