Of the Laurel Tree in My Garden

An aeolian harp is an instrument played not by human hands but by the wind. A stringed instrument, tall, if you place it in a windy corridor or on a hilltop, the wind will rush through the strings, causing them to vibrate and making the most eerie, beautiful, and haunting noises...at once a sigh and a moan. It was named after the ancient Greek god Aeolus, god of the wind.


Daphne remembers
And wind whistles through her.

Once she tumbled, limbs over limbs,
With lovely Eola.
She and she would laugh, dance.
They were for one another
And it was enough.

But jealous gods breathe jealous gales,
And Apollo, storm of lust in him,
Could not bear to see their hands entwined
Climbing like catbriars with dark, tumescent berries.
He gave chase to take what was never his.

When I see Daphne now,
She is posing her prayer to the gods from my garden.
Her feet anchored in the soil, her arms up in supplication,
She begs the gods for the day when no man sees fit
To rape what he may not have for the asking,
And when a pair of blossoming nymphs
May love as they choose.

I add my prayer to the laurel's,
And in my queer heart dream
Of some future she, and the knowledge
That she and I will be for one another
And it will be enough.

Meanwhile in the garden, Daphne remembers.
She has become both a tree and a harp,
And Eola, a whisper of wind, still plays her strings.