What is it to me
oh laurel tree
if, before the gaze of the fishermen who fish the Aegean sea
it was your bark that bit into the body
of Peneus’ lovely daughter, of naked Daphne
as she ran through Thessaly
as if to flee
from the glory
of God according to the story?
Was it, I wonder, was it at all gory,
the aftermath of the story
in which Apollo chased chaste Daphne
until she
was turned into a tree,
into thee,
to preserve in thee
her maiden chastity –
a frangible commodity
more precious than god-ravished mortal flesh could be?
But, I wonder, was it not bloody?
Was no blood shed as god-chased, chaste Daphne
died to human flesh and took on immortality
by the Aegean sea
as a tree
as a chaste laurel tree
in Greek mythology?
Well even so, what is it to me?
You can have your Daphne
Yes, and a whole unravished wood of Daphnes, in all their bosky
immortality,
as far as the eye can see –
it is all the same to me.
All Greek mythology…
Yes, it should all the same to me,
until I remember that unearthly
beauty,
she
who is called Venus by the Roman, by the Greek Aphrodite,
that she
is a gentle goddess whose passion is both heavenly
and, though she
is herself unearthly,
her passion is both heavenly
and of the earth, earthy.
Oh Aphrodite!
Touch me!
Hold me!
Handle me!
Play with me –
Botticelli
caught you just as you were borne freshly
in the fullness of divine – but oh so fleshly –
beauty
from the sea
wafted by the breeze you stepped ashore beneath the shade of an adoring cypress tree.
Oh yes, I too was born on that same island of beauty
and so you see
quite obviously
you ought undoubtedly
to be
the one for me.
Ah, but apparently
it was not to be.
But even so, what is that to me?
What is it to me
if she –
even my own, as I thought, my lovely
Aphrodite –
lasciviously
lusciously
stretch out her limber limbs and lay herself down beneath a green bay tree
spreading wickedly
before the gaze of the fishermen who fish the Aegean sea
for all eternity?
Beauty?
Immortality?
Oh Daphne
Oh Aphrodite,
what are you to me?
what are you to me?
Patrick Leighton Forse