Mythopoetry in April

This month, in honor of the re-releases of Mythic Dimension and Primitive Mythology in eBook and audiobook forms, the Joseph Campbell Foundation is celebrating how we use mythology in our lives. As a form of knowing that is deeply based in metaphor, myth holds hands with poetry. This week, we'd like to share a piece by poet and mythologist, Stephanie Pope. We asked her how she would respond to the challenge of a poem that captured a sense of using mythology, and she responded with this new poem, not yet published. Enjoy. And we invite you to roll it around on your tongue and see what it brings up for you as April begins to green the world in the Northern hemisphere.

. . .

MARTIAL SPIRIT AND NOBLE GREENNESS

O most noble greenness rooted in the soul  - Hildegard von Bingen, Also, Of The Maids 

A saturnalia is

the blackening of a star

a star buried in Saturn

Here beauty streams

from the eyes of women

noble and green

Drain the swamp and

hole becomes shithole

how low must one go?

Well-being does not exist

at the top where

one might think

Buried deep where a low is lit;

down there a secret fire

(in the hole of workers, high

schooled students, and the mass

generation not inviolate

where enough is enough)

gathers a viable massa confusa

gnawing at its own rootedness

in an ars requirit

Let that sink in a bit.  Evil is without

autonomy having served its role in

holeness. Joined is high and low in the head

of state; something more passive in matters

consoled sharpens our discernment for

what is real in what merely simulates shit.

Tears cleanse our words, our cloudy ears

our eyes; our throats

adorned in crystal.

About Stephanie

Cultural mythologer, poet-essayist, Stephanie Pope, MA, publishes Mythopoetry Scholar Ezine and Mythopoetry Blog. Her latest poetry volume, Monsters & Bugs, can be found on Amazon.