“Medusa was punished for the crime of being desired & taken by a god, in the wrong place: a temple of virgins. It happens sometimes, I can vouch for it. I dug up this root, and saved it in a bucket for a week, struck, I guess, by the perfect tangled hair & muscled body, so clearly her own. But now I notice her bow, half drawn, relaxed, & ready. I’m so glad she has it! Because, they come back in the night, and ask for more. Then they take, and don’t ask. And in the first blush of a winter’s morning, still half in sleep, I wonder ... if I let him ... suddenly unsure and ashamed of myself, reliving what was bad, and good, about what, seemingly, could not be stopped. Here the wave of brilliant maple leaves, tossed up on a gust, crossing the town common on one of the very best days of autumn. There may never be another like this, perhaps, ecstatic emptying of trees. So deeply kind, demanding honor, for the armies of orange as they move from asphalt to gravel, into storm drains & bushes, already forgotten. I would save them all if I could. But not knowing where to put them, or how to care for so many, in the end, I’d be left indecisively burdened by my own stupid sense of responsibility. In the far reaches of my memory, I can still see dad in the yard, setting fire to the whole pile. Things we used to do, in a college town, bundled in sweaters, so glad to be outdoors. He knew what to do, what to deny you did, and how to burn things down. Ah, Medusa. More than a root, but less than accepted for who you were: young, beautiful, vibrant with an innate intelligence few could understand. They dug you up, out of nowhere, and could not believe how much you looked like something they wanted. And so they used you. Again and again. I really have to mention here that I broke my shovel twice this season, and I can only think it was due to my obsession with what’s buried. The harder you dig, the more you try to lever the truth out of things, the more they break your tools. Yes, those gods may have a handle (no pun intended) on big things like “the ocean” or “the underworld” but we snake-haired archers have a mutability that rivals water. They can chase us down & bend us to their purpose, and propagate their mythologies, but we survive. We survive and survive and grow a forest of aromatic balsam around our hearts. And it is into this impenetrable woods, that few of them will ever venture.”
