The Handless Maiden In Verse - Part 2
Monthly poems serializing a classic tale in verse...
Dear friends,
Thank you so much for stepping into this little corner of the poetry world. :)
Welcome to the second installment of The Handless Maiden in Verse! If you missed Part 1, not to worry! It’s linked here:
I also 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 materials. :)
Take gentle, tender care & speak soon.
Gratefully,
The Handless Maiden - Part 2
In a rushed run our Miller bounded,
his tears like decorative streamers
flying from his cheekbones,
toward a home so far in the past
he almost didn't recognize it.
His wife, stumbling through
the salmon-thick stream
that seamed the land between
forest and clearing, where
their cottage rests, squeeled
as her feet squished inside
velvet-toed ballet slippers.
The rim of her dress—
trimmed in bloodstone, cedar, pine—
sparkled dark red & green as if Christmastime.
She hugged a turkey to her chest—
the size of a small child—completely
off-kilter without the use of arms,
or her well-worked, weathered hands.
"Oh! My dear! We have fresh food and herbs!
How is it so when the earth hasn't yet healed?
When our prince still rakes pith from it's cracks?"
"Dearest, do not worry about a thing.
There are powers greater! And ever so unsuspecting!
But where is our daughter? Of everything
I must inform her, as I so love to do!"
"Ah, yes. She awaits you, as usual, where usual.
You must be tired—to ask
after your shared, sacred space?
A long day, surely, as the trees remind us."
"You have no idea..."
The Miller's voice trailed off.
He knew exactly where his daughter was.
His rough boots tore through the now
lush, invasive grasses,
strangely wreathing the house.
He nearly knocked over clay barrels
of fresh milk, honey, and cream.
His brittle hair strangled
the brisk, hanging rosemary.
He erupted, finally, through
the back door of the cottage
to calmness. There they were.
The apple tree looked, to the Miller,
much less luminous than the wealth
now enveloping the house, as if it were
the final step: the postage stamp.
Still and slowly rotting, the tree
carried his young daughter,
who lay as gently as one could
across a branch, hands folded
atop a ripe but unbitten apple
on her heart. She looked only to the clouds
when she said, somberly and softly:
"It's not so much what you've done,
but that this didn't cross your mind when you did it."
The Miller knew Slyth
must have spoken to her somehow.
"Oh, Eva, love, I'm terribly
sorry. I simply forgot."
"Perhaps instead of forgetting, you
mean you didn't care enough—
simply, as you say—to remember?"
Soon, Slyth slipped, eagerly,
around the back corner of the cottage,
on Tuesday's blue morning,
rigidly and assuming
his brother would be waiting. He wasn't.
The yard was quieter than grief;
quieter than anything had ever seemed.
Eva stood still, both arms
behind her back, hands clasped
around a mason jar of white
salt with which she'd drawn a circle
around herself and her dying tree.
She wore a brown blouse
and an almost-white pinafore,
together nearer the colours
of an apple's nibbled flesh.
"Come, child." Slyth demanded
calmly, almost kindly.
Eva's violet eyes stared,
unblinking as she trembled.
She didn't so much as shake
her head, though her features
seemed to soften and sleeken,
as if she'd stripped Slyth of his own
snake-likeness: smooth, thin, strong,
and as pure as it's full-body muscle.
"Come. You do realize you have no choice."
Slyth decided not to ask any longer, taking
a confident step toward the salt circle.
As Eva prepared to protect
her ground, her tears fell in troves,
bubbling and boiling
along the border surrounding her.
Slyth could not cross it. It burned him.
"You witch!"
He surrendered to his bony knees,
clawing at the soil. The salty heat
tore at his sickly skin, scraping
fingernail after fingernal clean off.
Slyth screamed
the name of his brother, sour in his mouth,
who had yet to appear. Unable to
overcome his shame, the Miller watched, sitting
on the edge of his second floor windowsill.
"You betrayed me! You promised me
the apple tree and a willing woman—
one who would eat from it; who would
catalyze her own wearing thin with me.
But your daughter will not.
She is not who she's supposed to be."
"I know," The Miller whispered to himself.
"And that is why I will never face her again."
"When I return, in one week,
I expect her felled. That is your role
in this world. Perform it, or see
the consequences."
As Slyth left, returning to the forest,
Eva knelt with exhaustion,
not to give up but to give back:
with her index and middle
fingers together, she swiped a strip
of brow sweat and gathered the last
tears from her cheeks. She traced
the damp, salty circle, crawling
on her hands and knees.
"You may return to the soil,
You may return to the sea,
And when you're ready, please,
come back to me."
To Be Continued...Before You Go…
Here are a few life-giving poems from some brilliant poets:
Downhearted by Ada Limón
Love Poem by Linda Pastan
Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert
Essay on Craft by Ocean Vuong
Upon Reading That Eric Dolphy Transcribed Even the Calls of Certain Species of Birds, by John Murillo
Maria Giesbrecht’s new poems (they’re extraordinary)
Sheila Dong’s new poems (they’re also extraordinary)
Homesick: A Plea for Our Planet by Andrea Gibson
Yes by William Stafford
Starlight by Ted Kooser
Super Bowl by Mary Ruefle
The First Water Is The Body by Natalie Diaz
Pequi Winds by Jacqueline Ferraz De Lima
Broken Sonnets for the Anthropocene by Sneha Subramanian Kanta
