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Cover Photo by Brad Iverson
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Aesop's Eagles
". . . the eagles flew and flew until they met here
at the centerpoint of land and sea: Delphi. . . . those eagles are always there;
and moreover it seems they always were."
-from a 1985 guidebook on Greece
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The Storyteller Tells Himself
Some say my name
comes from the word Ethiop.
Yes, I know they say
many things about me.
I say I'm as Greek
as the olives I eat
as Greek as the horta greens I pick
on the Hill of the Nymphs
across from the Acropolis.
Unlike the wolf, I do not eat meat.
Unlike the lion, I do not keep a lioness.
My hair brownish-black and long
blends into my graying beard
as if a ring of twisted drapery-fringe
surrounds and partially shields
my face, which some say is ugly.
I say it has, well,
pleasant mystery about it
necessary in my line of work.
A small spot darker than my skin
clings to my dimming right eye
where a dog bit me, or so they say.
I was born in Thrace with two cloth pouches
hanging from my neck. The red one in back
held all my bad traits. I couldn't see it
though I always doubted it was very full.
The blue one in front was bulging
with everyone else's flaws, which
I thought were as clear
as the night sky over Mt. Pendeli.
Some say I'm a slave
belonging to the house of Iadmon.
I say I walk freely in my world.
Like all trapped creatures
I revise the truth to survive
the road I'm on.
My roads are dust. My limp
begets quick coin, procures
tasty items at a discount
salacious ones, too.
Once I was behind a red-lipped woman
in the agora, whose thick wood soles
cut the words "follow me" in the dust.
Given to morals, I'll say only this:
the follower shall be first.
I am on my way to Delphi,
source of life
and my own feet draw in dust
the direction in which I travel.
One Eagle Speaks
I wish I were a peafowl
the loveliest in the garden
greener, more feathery
than mimosa leaves, more turquoise
than eyes from the north,
more curved than a neck.
Alas, I am but
half-goddess/half-raptor,
or so it is said,
which serves to explain
why I am left strong and free
to traverse thousands of miles
swoop down from mountains
soar high into them
always going toward Delphi
earth's source
umbilical to the mother
magnet that holds
my flight's single path.
I stop for winter only.
The Other Eagle Speaks
The storyteller found me
caught in the resin of a pinetree
at the beach.
I called to him,
"Aesop, get me out of this mess!"
He flew up, like a bird,
ugly old crow that he was,
and freed me,
saying, "Eagles find eagles."
I flapped my wings,
for what he said was true.
I myself was being inexplicably pulled
toward the eagle of my life.
She would meet me at Delphi.
"And," he added
with an odd glint in his dim eyes,
"pinenuts find pinenuts."
So he stayed in the tree
eating pinenuts
until sleep overcame him
on the decayed limb he'd chosen.
I owed him rescue, that I knew.
But what was happening?
Was I a character
in one of his harebrained stories?
"Holy Zeus," I muttered, "I can't be delayed.
The end will go all wrong."
But I flew up and
with strength greater than I knew I had
grabbed the two pouches off the old coot.
He awoke with a start,
crawled down the trunk of the tree to safety
just as the limb exploded
in rotten pulverization.
"My pouches," he cried out,
oblivious to his good luck.
"Give them to me, ingrate.
I need them for balance."
I tried to pick them up,
but gone was the uncanny might
that comes with emergency.
This time I could lift only one,
which happened to be red.
"Wear your flaws in front," I said,
lowering the pouch to his chest.
Then with the world's imperfections
in my talons
I flew over the sea,
dropped them in to merge with flotsam
and soared on toward
the perfect end.
The Narration of a Love Story
Years ago, when the storyteller
was still hopeful, he entered Metsovo
in the company of a nighttime snowstorm
that slanted down onto the fields and hovels.
In that village of the north land
snows could be so deep it became
the only town in the world.
Beautiful motherless Malamatí
with emerald eyes and apricot hair,
said to be half-goddess/half-woman,
left her house to taste fresh snow.
Her cistern was clogged and frozen
and what water trickled out
tasted of trout.
In slender movements she stopped
to scoop some snow near the lean-to
where the storyteller was encased in his cloak
pulling it ever tighter
against the crystal-filled wind.
Through the slit he watched her
put snow into her mouth.
She felt his presence.
"It is like a mountain stream," she said.
"It would be better with honey," he said.
"If I had honey," she said.
"If you had bees," he said.
Malamatí looked at the storyteller.
"You must be freezing, sir."
"I will not freeze to death," he said.
And she replied, "There is something in between."
The storyteller stayed with Malamatí
for the rest of winter.
They lived on fresh snow and olives
and kept each other warm.
When spring came, the world opened up
and he re-took the road.
When summer came, bees arrived in Metsovo
and honey sweetened the snow
every winter after that.
© 2001 Anne Harding Woodworth, all rights reserved. Contact publisher for re-print possibility
Review of Aesop’s Eagles and Poems From the Road, by Anne Harding Woodworth, available from Northwoods Press, PO Box 298, Thomaston, ME 04861 (Fax: 207-354-8953 or email: cal@americanletters.org). A companion CD of the entire book read by the author is also available. Tansy Howard Blumer
There is no dearth of poets in Washington. But the majority of them, it seems, are the “open mike” variety. They are the brave souls who come to hear accomplished poets perform their work in public arenas and then line up eagerly afterwards―when the mike is declared “open”―to read to a captive audience their own earnest, often raw, poetic yearnings.
The truly gifted poets are a much scarcer resource. One of the rarest of these ―Washington, DC resident Anne Harding Woodworth―uses humor, imagination, a lively curiosity, keen observation, a background in the classics and limitless creative energy to delight and surprise with an exciting variety of subjects and ideas.
Her new book, a chapbook entitled Aesop’s Eagles and Poems From the Road is a triumph, a collection of thoroughly original poems peopled with unexpected, fresh images and voices.
Part One belongs to Aesop. The beloved storyteller “tells himself” and explains that he is on the road to Delphi, a traveler in search of life. Ever the unassuming raconteur, he offers a personal theory to explain why his stories are popular; “They are so simplistic they seem profound.” After all, to him the “gab comes easily”; in fact, this ancient master of morals confesses, “I can stretch morals as if they’re cheesecloth.”
He gives us a glimpse into his imagination― an animated, colorful place where he talks to animals, trees, rocks; “I quite like conversations with fire.” And then the cross talk begins. The dog that bit the baby Aesop, the bramble, the oak, the eagle, the “other eagle” all offer their yearnings and stories; each has a turn at the open mike. They are, after all, the source of the storyteller’s inspiration and moralistic wisdom.
Arguably Aesop’s most famous character, the Tortoise, gives us his take on that ancient success that still exhorts us today: “I should have lost. You know that. I know that. But the expected in fiction is such a hollow vessel.” This is pure Woodworth; playful, insightful, plausible, unique.
Aesop arrives in Delphi where, according to a “city father” the new oracle not only is not a native to Delphi, “but, worse, she is not a virgin.” A disgrace to previous oracles, she gives “outrageously rational predictions” full of doom and leaving no room for interpretation.
The city father then confides that, in the anticipation of Aesop’s arrival, “the oracle panicked” and hastily worked to make herself hideous. Relieved, he reports that her reeking disguise was a comfort to the people of Delphi. For, “Of all the creatures in the universe our oracle must be able to hide the truth.”
Facing the oracle, Aesop learns that she is an old love, “the lovely creature that came into my world.” The ending of this tale must not be told in a mere review. It must be experienced on a very personal level. In fact, by far the best way to learn of it is with the book in hand, following the words along with Woodworth’s artful reading on CD.
Part Two finds Woodworth on the road, a familiar place for this voracious traveler. Walking by her side, we see forsythia blooming along the roadside in Italy and bask in the sun that “heals and dries the fields near Padua and keeps the quicklime crisp.”
She swears she saw Elvis on the road out of Syracuse. Or was it Catullus? For Woodworth, this is no stretch. And then, away from the ancient sites and sights of Italy, she takes us to the “town I drove out of” in upstate New York, where Bill Waldron “spared my mother and father agony by teaching me how to drive a stick in a cornfield” while murmuring, “Oh m’god, downshift, girl, easerup.”
In another offering, the poet drives along a faceless freeway and spots a mattress that has “crawled to its resting place like a striped inchworm.” The poet has become Aesop, her imagination full of characters, creatures, wisdom, unambiguous oracles, and stories with morals.
Even Mr. Rosen who “makes crates, enters them, he tells us, to feel roughness from within” has a purpose in the retelling. With all this traveling, all this seeking, all this telling, the poet’s feet have started to hurt.
She tells us to take off our shoes and “spill out the day.” It appears the source of the pain is one small stone. And then the poet asks:
Is that what caused the pain,
this fossil-grit from the red shale creek
that reminds you of crossing over,
limping, from water to land
like the fish with legs,
estranged, cold
and having to breathe
in a way the others don't?
The poet is no longer Aesop. She doesn’t offer the easy moral. No cheesecloth stretching for her. She’s still searching for the source of the pain. We want to sign on for another journey with her. And soon.
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