Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Galileo's Daughter



Galileo's daughter looks through a telescope at the stars.

To her, they seem very feminine--

She feels that she would like to dance with them

And make men weak-kneed with desire.


Galileo's daughter pauses next to a fountain and sees the stars reflected in the water.

To her, they seem like white horses drawing a carriage--

The carriage is night and she is riding in it,

Only to stop at a fountain so that she can look in.


Her father's friends call her "child" though she is twenty-two.

They set out their hearts like charts,

And like a latitudinal line,

She splits them.


Galileo's daughter lays on her back like a boy, determined to count the stars.

To her, they are like salt spilled across a cloth which then overturns into the oceans.

She steals a sextant and takes up life at sea, the shores of which are her skin.


All through the dog days, she plays Sirius to a series of lovers;

The boys won't last the summer,

But the girls sing rondeaux

And dance in the most beautiful arrangements

Beyond the ken of stunned scientists

At their instruments.

________
Art by Dante Rossetti

16 comments:

  1. Yeah! How DO you do it?!

    *Clap Clap*

    Aloha, Friend!


    Comfort Spiral

    ReplyDelete
  2. The smart ladies without mercy? Magic it was really. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. sounds like she has found her own self-play dough ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lovely. The title itself had me. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. you have taken me to a beautiful place...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Just perfect. The kind of work I love from you my friend... How you do it they ask... SO easy for a goddess poetess!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have given you an award!

    Check it out below!!

    http://sharoninwonderland.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-post_04.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ah this is where the myth/lore of the sirens comes from ..

    ReplyDelete
  9. Definitely a star studded poem. :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Beautiful as always!

    Did you read the novel about his daughter that was popular a few years ago? Apparently, his actual daughter spent her life shut up in a nunnery. So sad.

    ReplyDelete
  11. FireBlossom, I feel SO outclassed when I come to your blog, but I have to comment, even if just to let you know that.

    Thanks for allowing me glimpses into your world, that of writer extraordinaire!

    ReplyDelete
  12. OK, I'll admit it.

    I came for the cute girl without a shirt.

    I stayed for the BEAUTIFUL words written below her.

    I commented for myself, I do so enjoy your writing

    :-)

    ReplyDelete

Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?