Giving a Voice to the Silent (Journal 14)

The Pocket Muse, p. 18

“I've always been interested in writing about people...who are not able to speak for themselves.  As in my novel Black Water – I provide a voice for someone who has died and can't speak for herself.”  ~Joyce Carol Oates

Write about something in the voice of someone who has, until now, been silent.

Preface:  I have been thinking a lot about Greco-Roman mythology.  My husband and I have been heatedly debating it, in fact.  He has recently been re-playing this video game: God of War III.  In the previous installment of this game, the main character (which he played) killed Zeus.  So I've been thinking about what it would take to truly kill an immortal, and what makes someone immortal.  I've been thinking about the geography of Hades itself and its four rivers.  You cross the Styx to get in, and drink from the Lethe to forget your previous incarnation so that you may remain in the Underworld untroubled by who you used to be.  This thought trail then led me to thinking about one of my favorite myths: Orpheus and Eurydice.  In this myth, Orpheus descends into the Underworld to save his true love, but instead banishes her to an eternity there.  The myth focuses solely on his point of view and his grief following his failure.  But she is the silent one whose voice I attempt to recapture in this poem.

"Greek Tragedy"

You cannot trust my muffled foot treads

echoing in the back of your brain.

You hear my bare feet fall;

broken glass crunches beneath my bloodied toes.

You know I am there, in your shadow,

my wraithlike presence

calling to you from across dark Stygian waters.

I am your Eurydice,

and you cannot stop yourself from turning back,

looking over your shoulder, just to see.

You do not trust Black Hades' promise

or your own knowledge of my steady steps

mirroring your own.

I am banished by your thoughtless blunder.

Exiled to those Elysian Fields

I feast on pomegranates, juicy, and red

as my heart betrayed.

Lethe's purple waters urge me to forget this wound,

but I am unwilling or unable,

while you with your lute sing of love lost,

your haunting voice filled with self-pity.

I loathe you, wish upon you the trials of Tantalus

or Prometheus's pain,

but you do not notice,

self-absorbed as you are,

singing of your own loss,

melancholy mourning and lyrics of lament.

Yours is a melodic sound of sorrow

while Cerberus's three-headed howls

echo my cries, my ululation.

You inhale, breathing the breath of life,

laden with sweet verdance,

and I am left the sole heir to this, our legacy.

I will wear these riches, the jewels of this journey,

baubles of bitterness.

I remove the gold coins from my eyes

and I will remember:

it is you who has forsaken me.