The Handless Maiden In Verse - Part 1
Monthly poems serializing a classic tale in verse...
Dear friends,
Thank you so much for stepping into this little corner of the poetry world. :)
I’m very eager & excited to share that for the next year or so, I’ll be telling a single story in 11 parts, one each month. This story will be The Handless Maiden in verse!
The Handless Maiden is a German myth/fairytale I’ve loved for years. I first learned it from Michael McRay via Becoming Restoried, who learned it from the wonderful mythologist, Martin Shaw. I’ve written extensively about my time in the Becoming Restoried program, and you can find those journals here!
I truly cannot wait to write these poems & share them with you.
Please feel free to share this ‘poetriesletter’ with a friend, your network, or social media (or gift them a subscription)!
You can also check out my about page to see how this Substack is changing—what’s for subscribers only, what’s for paid subscribers, etc.
I know a lot is going on right now & I know you feel its residue, too. So I wanted to share some newsletters that help me stay informed (but grounded) amid the slush of social media: The On Canada Project (for other fantastic Substacks, you can see which ones I read & recommend here), The 1440, Reimagined, Collective Rest, Al Jazeera, and SAPIENS.
I hope you enjoy this month’s poem, recording, and photos.
Take gentle, tender care & speak soon.
Gratefully,
The Handless Maiden - Part 1
Hold my hand, cresting the ripples of a campfire's time; as ghosts among its smoke, they cannot see us. Look across, not down, upon a thick forest, no more now than a shadow made of dead spiders on their backs—spikes of dark, damp wood that cannot burn. At the edge, see a young man by our measure, forty, a gifted miller, scraped hollow and raw in spirit and home by a greedy prince's domain. Two tears fall for a wife and daughter, who remember the warm wellbeing that once wreathed them, soft like the Spring that the forest has not recoiled in years. Lonely among an Earth that can no longer awaken in the steam of its weeping, the Miller climbs the black bones of an oak, looking for any kindling that might be breeze-blown cold enough —dry enough—to catch fire. And as he searches he climbs higher. And as he climbs higher he looks down more tenderly. Please know the mud below would have appeared irresistably tender had so much as a simple snowflake fallen to further wet the wood that the Miller desperately reached for. But as he looked down, the Miller saw a figure nearly indestiguishable from the echo of trunks, watching, craving to let it be known that he was walking away with the wickedness of those who fall for fool's faith: that conformity might save them. (And, my dear, I am very sure, that of this part of the story you've never heard before. Blood truces, you see, only last so long...these two have been brothers, all along.) And thus, as if its reflection, the figure walked toward the tree that our Miller, perched in above, did not grip tightly enough. Cloaked in cherry tree bark as thin as if by potato peeler, his face was concealed, and his slithered stride so smooth that the leaves did not crunch. "There are better choices, you see," he said in a slithering, hissing voice, once beneath the tree. Our Miller narrowed his eyes and didn't say anything. "Do you not trust me, brother?" The Miller squinted hard, finally recognizing the transparent face of his dead brother, tilted up beneath a hood. The Miller shook his head, afraid, his eyes asking how on God's Earth, no longer green enough for the question, his brother could return again. "Oh, old Slyth cannot witness his brother so..." "Tell me the real reason." "Well, you will not be surprised to know I made a grand deal." Slyth smiled with teeth so sharp they crafted a dripping, shadow-like charcoal blood down his thin chin. The Miller's brows raised, waiting for more. "A few deals ago I gathered dark magic, as you know, and my only way to renounce it—to rest— is to aid another soul. I choose you, of course." The Miller climbed down from the tree just now. "What are you saying?" "I will restore what once was. In fact, it is done with zest: your wealth is now replenished." The Miller looked around him. Nothing had changed aside from a dense stillness as if a spell had been cast. Knowing his brother in life, and unsure of him in death, he asked, "And you wish for nothing in return?" Sweetening his voice, Slyth said, "Oh no, of course not. You know I would choose no one but you." The Miller looked into the hard, red, dead eyes of his brother. "Has this freed you? Or is there more?" "Well, a gift from life, in return, reverses any sin, so I have learned." The Miller smirked with familiar playfulness. Slyth continued, "Might I take whatever is behind your house at this moment?" "Hm. Our rotting apple tree—so fitting to free your sinful soul, brother." "Yes, precisely. It is perfect." "And you will finally leave us alone after this, too? No more haunting?" "Of course, dearest. You have always been the better of us, preferred of us, and this, well, this is the best news. At last I have slinked out of my mess, no stone unturned, as you say of peace." The Miller grinned, now unable to grasp his excitement to return to his cottage. "I confess I will stop by next Tuesday to collect this precious gift." "Shall I uproot the tree for you?" "Oh, no, that will not be necessary. You know what deal you struck and with who you have struck it. Do you not?" The Miller chuckled, refreshed by his brother's riddled cleverness. Slyth tipped the top of his cloak hood as if it were a brimmed hat, and vanished faster than safety. The Miller shivered, believing it to be Spring's earliest breeze. To Be Continued...
Before You Go…
Here are a few life-giving poems from some brilliant poets:
What the Living Do by Marie Howe
The Afternoon Sun by C. P. Cavafy
An Order for My Backpack + Three Stages of Nowhere by Don Edward Walicek
Solitary Swedish Houses by Tomas Tranströmer
Heaven On Earth + Jesus Is Palestinian by Nadia Said
Poems by Richard Garcia (Dark Night is my favourite of this bunch)
The Singing by Rick Barot
Eulogy to a Hell of a Dame by Charles Bukowski
DID YOU HEAR THE PLANE by Joél Leon
poem for the end of a long week by Anagha Smrithi
This start has me intrigued! I am not familiar with the Handless Maiden 💛 I loved the beginning of the poem with the connecting between holding hands transitioning into the campfire.