About the Muses

By CATHERINE STAPLES

Some say three, others nine. Varro claimed
one was born of water, another played daylight

like wind, invisible as the airs on Caliban’s isle.
A third made a home of the human voice singing.

Dear Hesiod, perhaps it wasn’t the Muses
you glimpsed on sodden farm fields:

barefoot, sopping wet—
but just a few village girls and cousins.

Lashes of rain, blowing mist, their arms
linked wrist by wrist

until they broke and sang. And a great haul
of wind shook the crowns of trees,

leaves twisting white, a bough cracked high.
You heard it—a shadow swayed and fell.

A red fox fairly flew through, his umber tail
flaming like the Perseids—was it then

you knew you were never alone,
that the voice welling up wasn’t strictly yours?

The girls gone. There under the dripping trees
a herd of deer, eight or nine at least.

 

Catherine Staples is the author of The Rattling Window and Never a Note Forfeit. Her poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review Online, Poetry, The Southern Review, and others; new work is forthcoming at The Yale Review and Commonweal. She teaches in the Honors and English programs at Villanova University. 

 

[Purchase Issue 17 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

About the Muses

Related Posts

A photograph of leaves and berries

Ode to Mitski 

WILLIAM FARGASON
while driving today     to pick up groceries / I drive over     the bridge where it would be  / so easy to drive     right off     the water  / a blanket to lay over     my head     its fevers  / I do want to live     most days     but today / I don’t     I could     let go of the wheel  

The Month When I Watch Joker Every Day

ERICA DAWSON
This is a fundamental memory. / The signs pointing to doing something right / and failing. Educated and I lost / my job. Bipolar and I cannot lose / my mind. The first responder says I’m safe. / Joaquin Phoenix is in the hospital. / I’m in my bedroom where I’ve tacked a sheet...

Image of glasses atop a black hat

Kaymoor, West Virginia

G. C. WALDREP
According to rule. The terrible safeguard / of the text when placed against the granite / ledge into which our industry inscribed / itself. We were prying choice from the jaws / of poverty, from the laws of poverty. / But what came out was exile.