Apr 21, 2016 Free Verse, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
What the Mountain Heard
(Poem From Point of View of Echo’s Mountains)
©April 21st, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Whom does she call, this Voice
So alluring, so full of anguish,
So rich with music, quickening
With languishing love,
So haunted by lost hope?
Whom does she mourn,
Surely the most forlorn, the
Most beautiful of nymphs
Ever to dance lightly
Upon my slopes,
This sylph smitten by love?
Innocent nymph, so
Free from travails ere now
Now, entrammeled by woe
Why do you cry and call?
Fallen into a spell that
Besets those who live,
Whom do you mourn?
Why did you succumb?
Look! Don’t cry. For I
Will magnify your voice
Thrice three times,
Again and again and again,
For you sing me the music I crave.
I will repeat your brave words
So they will be heard
Again, and again, and again.
Come, call out once more,
For I have grown to love you,
And though that proud lad
Gazing at his beloved pool
Heeds not the sound,
I know the Pool does,
For she creases her brow
And clears again – she will
Not allow your interference.
She will frown, and erase
The ripples you cause
With your cries, your voice.
Foolish Pool, keep your boy!
I’ll have my girl, for she learns
She is not loved, not by him.
She will wander my slopes
Over, and over and over,
Seeking what she will not find
I will love her, and she’ll
Not know me, not she who loves
A mirage, an emptiness, a reflection.
But I shall hold her voice
In my cradle of sound
Forever, and ever, and ever.
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And the NaPoWriMo prompt for Day 21:
And now, for our prompt (optional as always!) Just as Rosa Jamila’s poems often sound like they come out of a myth or fairy tale (and not always one with a happy ending), today I challenge you to write a poem in the voice of minor character from a fairy tale or myth. Instead of writing from the point of view of Cinderella, write from the point of view of the mouse who got turned into a coachman. Instead of writing from the point of view of Orpheus or Eurydice, write from the point of view of one of the shades in Hades who watched Eurydice leave and then come back. Happy writing!
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