If she held a beacon
tightly to her breast
it would not shadow her,
nor would her hands be stained
were she to touch
the Holy Grail.
Her veins would never tangle
should she frolic
with the gods
nor would she burn to ashes
running naked
through the fire.
She’d not be struck with blindness
nor would her conscience bleed
were she to waken Eros
from a dream.
.
© 1995, 2014 Betty Hayes Albright
.
For the next poem in this series, please click on the Mayberrie tab at the top of this page, to see entire list.
(I’m in the slow process of linking them all together.)
Seasonings 
Wow – who IS she? 🙂
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Someone who doesn’t let anything except her own inner voice tell her what to do – or whom to love? 🙂
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I think I like her… 😀
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Life unrestrained by others is indeed guiltless.
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Yes – one who listens to his/her own heart and soul….
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Ah yes, I remember this one.
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I had a feeling you might – even though it was posted waaaay back, 2-1/2 years ago.
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A few things stick with us, get caught in the “colander brain” holes.
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Stunning, Betty. If we could only see, and find, the absolute purity of our souls we would, indeed, not have to descend into the dense, earthly feelings of guilt because we would know only love.
I have just started a page on my blog where I post links to other’s poems I especially love – and have posted the link to this one (http://angelahickmanblog.wordpress.com/poems-posts-i-love/). In fact another one of your poems was the first :-).
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Thank you, Angela – you understood it perfectly.
And I shall check your new page now. Much appreciation! 🙂
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How wonderful not to feel guilt. Of course we can still feel it cant we even if we’re honest to the end because we can allow others to make us feel guilty too. I love the way your poetry always flows so effortlessly Betty. Sending hugs xx
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Thanks, Christine! (I wish the poetry really did flow effortlessly – it doesn’t do that very often anymore.)
You’re right about guilt – others might try to make us feel guilty, but we mustn’t let them – at least when it comes to love.
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An autobiographical poem?
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Metaphorically yes. 🙂
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When you write like this Betty you slap us in the face and say, wake up! A poem about guilt that absolves us all that bothers us in the deep of night and lets love become the strength that it always is. I think how you pull this off is the way Shakespeare pulled off this sonnet:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
By denying what is obviously true, at least in the poet’s estimation, the trueness of what is said becomes more true, but with a difference. That difference is really what the poem is all about.
In Shakespeare’s poem he is praising the beauty of his love, the dark lady in the sonnet sequence. Still, he takes on poets who compare the beauty of women’s parts to coral, snow, roses, etc. By denying their description he builds to a climax where he praises his love extravagantly by denying extravagance while also characterizing his “love as rare.” By using this technique he wrote one of many of his sonnet masterpieces.
In your poem the same technique, although different in tone and meaning, is used:
If she held a beacon
tightly to her breast
it would not shadow her,
nor would her hands be stained
were she to touch
the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail is, of course, is universal symbol of purity. Therefore you are forcefully denying purity while, at the same time, saying that if you touched purity it would not leave your hands stained. This is as complex a notion as what Shakespeare is getting at when he denies the dark lady is a goddess, which he has never seen. The simplicity and directness of the words belie the real meaning derived from the context built within the lines.
The final four lines also, like Shakespeare’s sonnet, build to a climax that forces the reader to construct the meaning of the poem:
She’d not be struck with blindness
nor would her conscience bleed
were she to waken Eros
from a dream.
In the end, in your poem, Eros wakened from a dream is not a stain on purity even if you touched the Holy Grail. Eros is not a reason to have the “conscience bleed.” In Shakespeare’s sonnet, of course, the dark lady, in the poet’s estimation, may not be a goddess. “My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.” But she is more extraordinary than those women that other poets would compare to her using false analogies.
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Thomas, thank you so much for the depth of your comment! You’ve taught me something new.
The sonnet by Shakespeare is unfamiliar to me, but it’s interesting to read your comparison of his technique to my poem. I wasn’t thinking “technique” when writing this one. It came in a defiant rush, mostly from the right side of my brain – a place of deep emotion, intuition, and of course love – and innocence on the deepest level.
It’s gratifying that you understood what I was trying to say. (Not everyone does.) Yes, “Eros is not a reason to have the ‘conscience bleed'” and is “not a stain on purity” – exactly. I appreciate very much your insight – and for introducing me to this Shakespeare sonnet. (I feel the parallel in what he too must’ve been feeling – there is also defiance and rebellion in his words.)
Thank you again, Thomas!
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This is quite different for you, Betty. Thomas has covered so much in his comment that I have very little to add, except that I liked it, and that the woman with a torch put me in view of the Statue of Liberty, emblem of both France and the US. How far things have strayed from that initial ideal.
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