My Poem: Immortal Wives: Andy/Quynh: Sapphic Ode

Title: Immortal Wives
Fandom: The Old Guard
Pairing: Andy/Quynh
Poetic Form: Sapphic ode
Rating: Gen
Length: 111

Jasmine blossoms sweetened the air with attar.
Smoky tendrils flavoured a moonlit pearl night.
Joy was ours, an iron understanding, love’s bar
forged by the firelight.

Memory consigned to worn sleep where no dread
lives. We fight and frolic in dream, desire rife.
‘Soldier lost’ a proxy for what can’t be said:
‘love of my lost life.’

Sandalwood reminds me of you, perfumed earth
where we fought and died and were born as new-selved.
Battle-coupled axe blade and sword gave new birth,
cleaving as love delved.

Sinking slowly, shouldering wrongs and what-ifs,
jasmine only whispers your name, a soft breath,
sandalwood is conquered by brine of steep cliffs,
plunging to un-death

Poet's Corner: The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!