Jack Hanson
Maternal

after Moreau's Salomé (1874) and Jupiter and Semele (1894-95)

The wind takes paper and mulch in its wings,
riding toward the crown and throne, red and gold.
The sun appears as a red star in the night
with eyes that never close - a gaze
that appears in rising and again in falling.

Her mother lifts a bended arm to reach
a flower (or was she out for the face hidden behind it?)
She cries from Thebes to Galilee
and her breath carries, trying to warm
her distant kin.

The green of trees has bloomed so late
and Semele prefers to wait.
Her eyes would know the arbor sphere
no matter were she there or here -

She is diffident to the reach of the sun, and knows
the slow arc of a young head and a worn breast
that fills with gold, death all the time becoming
smaller. But her descendant does not care to hear
and unveils herself before another king.

Paternal forgiveness is taken as a matter of course,
and sons may shift from love to love unfettered -
A reward always in waiting,
an embrace in repose and easily woken.
Praised be fathers and their forgiven sons.

The colors allow light to sing
and show what love of gods can bring.
Hera moves quickly to her throne
and Salomé is left alone.

Birds rest on a chopping block, then lift and go south,
though in flight they shift toward her
with steady glances to impress how soon
they will return, sighing, blameless and innocent
of any great transgression.

It was not her mother to whom she brought the dish.
The pleading is not due in Nazareth, but farther. Here,
in the world, or in Thebes, before. But there is no-one
to do the pleading. She is busy dancing, and
we rest beside the king, now and where it is past.

The rose she was not born to bear
has fallen lightly from her hair.
Though Herod's gaze will later chill,
she dances now and always will.

To the Daughters of the Evening Star

I have such gardens;
They cause me such trouble.
When shall I be free?
In mountain shadows
Mayflowers fail and I
Am fallen asleep.

_ _

Jack Hanson holds degrees from the Suffolk University and the University of Chicago. His poems and book reviews have appeared in Bookslut, the Inman Review, Open Letters Monthly, and are The Quarterly Conversation. He has just completed his first novel. Born and raised on Cape Cod, he now lives in Chicago.

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