(Ovid, The Metamorphoses – “Jove and the Arcadian Nymph” )
I carried it to the field
in a green Mason jar,
wrapped in white muslin
to protect the clinking ice
from melting to my warm touch.
A virgin, bearing drink to men in fields.
A drink of that same kind
I took to the barn — to father,
high on a mountain of hay.
Leaning down, head up,
the vessel clutched between my legs,
I thrust with hands, arms, back,
and thighs to toss the water up,
so not to spill its contents,
break the bottle on a beam.
He’d catch it, smile and say,
“My little water girl.”
Pleasing father, pleases “self,”
that first young “self,”
defined, kept, and loved by him.
Fearful girls might bind their breasts,
but even that cannot repress the woman.
At nature’s will, in place of fathers,
we take men, and then, like Jove’s
Callisto, her vessel broken,
we are cast out
( duped by squirming fate —
man or woman )
to live life, lonely, longer,
inheriting wealth, yet ill-prepared
to delegate our power…
I will, I swear it,
learn and share the plan;
master toil, a vial of water
strapped ‘cross my breast. And then,
again, like that Arcadian nymph,
I will discard my vestment,
hurl myself toward heaven,
on my own,
to breed with fire
a galaxy of girls.
By Donna Rice
Editor’s comments: “Metaphorically, after reading author Donna Rice’s writings, I can relate them to a few words from the song Evergreen, “…soft as an easy chair” reads, as well as a similarity to the final scene in movie, “Way We Were” when Hubbell aka Robert Redford recalls his time with Katie aka Barbra Streisand, the same dynamic drama, a heart no longer shy to express intimacy openly and telling the story using all the right mechanics. Poet Rice weaves her words in an unclothed fashion that pulls a reader of prose inside a woman’s soul, one drenching with desires of Should I or Should I not. Naked in her thoughts, exposed and spread eagle, she bears all in her writings; tales of times ago, tales of now, but most of all, tales that will heighten your imagination with heartfelt softness or even bring forth a “whew” with a moistened brow.” Ben Rayman
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