2 poems by Arabella Currie

E A R T H (after Sappho 96)

‘If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse’

Dave Goulson, ecologist

In fields full of flowers, dew used to fall

from silence. Roses opened in moonlight.

Clouds of chervil and melilot heavy with pollen

bloomed. When the sun set, the moon let its light

drop on cold water, fields full of flowers, stars.

Now you walk through these fields

hearing nothing. You remember: she was like

an astonishing goddess. You remember thinking her songs

were the best. You walk through the fields, empty with longing.

You think: it was my desire that devoured her heart.

homeric hymn

I’ll start with Demeter the grave goddess

and her skinny-ankled daughter who Hades raped

who gruff, omnipotent Zeus parceled up

who left her mother and walked with Ocean’s

slippery daughters to pick flowers:

roses,

crocuses, violets like crazy paving, irises,

hyacinth, daffodils which earth rammed

up: bait for this green girl, god’s will, death’s pleasure -

wet slick petals, fat stem, a hundred heads, smells

to kill for. All water, globe, ground gapes

to catch them. Tongues slide.

She smiled,

moved, picked. But earth shifted. Death rose

on horseback and took her.

_________

Arabella's first collection (The Divers) was published by Hurst Street Press and her writing has appeared in the TES, Icarus, the Oldie, Minerva, the Oxonian Review and Medusa & Her Sisters among other anthologies and magazines.