Livia’s outdone herself
the room is alive
leaves shimmer in light
birds all a-twitter
luscious balls of fruit hanging
our favourite goddesses
appear as plants
quince brings luck in love
pomegranate binds love and death
poppy a favourite from Eleusis
Diana Venus and Ceres are dancing
in a circle with
Hecate Aphrodite and Demeter
the first triad from Roma
the second from Greek Sicilia
Cybele appears
wild iris entwined
in a pine branch procession
some women need pageantry
una processione femminile
Diana why the ilex
is there something we should know?
others enter bearing
a veritable pharmacopœia
from shrubs and herbs
the nieces of Sicilian Medusa
and a group of Maori girls
are trading tongue gestures
for now it is playful
but each knows how fear can kill
Olympias and Agave arm in arm
snake-braceleted mænads twirl dust storms
the world is awhirl Psappha shouts
we are the ones I wrote about
someone in some future time will remember me
una processione femminile: Italian: a procession of women
Notes
The tarantella is an ancient Italian dance possibly connected to Dianic rituals. I first heard about the tarantella when Australian author, Finola Moorhead, was writing her feminist novel Remember the Tarantella in the late 1970s. The novel ends with a dance that takes place in 4553 BC. Fifty women gather under a full moon between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The women dance and at the end of the dance “each woman releases her menstrual flow into the pit of smouldering wheat.” (p. 306).
My poem ‘tarantella’ is a memory of a party held by Empress Livia of Rome. The party includes women from many eras, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific Ocean. At this imagined party women share and celebrate their understanding of the universe, of plants and birds and most of all, of women’s history. It is from my collection Lupa and Lamb which was written when I was a Literature Resident in Rome for six months.
© on Finola Moorhead, 1987 and 2011
© on Susan Hawthorne, 2014