Denise

sit. listen.
back, back when I was sma',
back in the days when many giants
strode thru my neighborhood,
she dwelt across from me
in that house with her family
and was the tallest
and the fairest of women.
when I grew older
I wondered if at night,
she ever stripped
and bathed in the rays
of the silvery moonlight
behind that curtain of trees
and pondered the old story
of the Titan goddess Dionysia.
listen.
Dionysia was also very beautiful
and dwelt alone on a large island,
one 'mongst the many Cyclades,
but she was always jealous of the Sun
because she felt it always outshone her,
and that her long gleaming red hair alone
eclipsed it entirely.
but when the Moon,
with whom she'd no quarrel,
shone down on her at night
she felt much more serene
and slept naked along the beach
and soaked up the moon's cool rays
as the waters gently lapped against
her long supple body.
but her displeasure of the Sun
had become too much
for her to bear over time,
so one day Dionysia uprooted
over a hundred cypress trees
that grew on the island's largest mountain
and tied them together end to end
in a long green javelin.
she would hurl it
directly into the Sun
and try to put it out
as Odysseus blinded Polyphemus.
when she was ready
she carefully targeted the Sun
then tossed the javelin high and far,
but it broke up in mid-flight
and all the trees flew apart
and sank in the Aegean.
Dionysia was frustrated at this
but later thought of another idea.
she drank deeply of the sea around her
and waited 'til she needed to make water,
then lifted up her bare bottom
to aim it at her bright rival
in hopes of simply dousing it out.
but the narrow stream she made
only filled an empty crater
on an island next to hers,
and that became a lake
which still bears her name.
yea, I speak the truth. listen.
but Hera, Queen of the Gods
on Mount Olympus, had had enough
of this Titan woman's silly antics
and turned her into a volcano
next to that silent mountain.
this volcano would burble and bubble
and fume and smoke
during the daytime,
but at night was as calm
as a sleeping infant.
it, like the lake, also is named
for the beautiful Dionysia.
of course the woman I knew
was nothing like her.
she moved away
many years ago.
the curtain is now half-torn
and the house sits dark and hollow
without any family at all
dwelling inside.
ah, so 'tis.

ha! do ye think I can put out
the moon by just jabbing it
with this stick? no?
then let's you and I lie here
and bathe in it
'til the heavenly dawn comes.



DB/2015