
She gets tired of waiting
in the hope:
He will want
And love her.
It has been decades
She has started this shawl.
Each row of knitting
Cries out for yearnings
Things past will return.
Ulysses is here
After long voyages.
His mind remains
On distant shores.
Penelope has pulled the yarn.
She reduced her work
To sad color balls.
Her needles worked anew
The heart he had destroyed.
She does not knit now:
Why will she waste
Fingers, yarn, and needles?
Penelope conks out:
“Ulysses, go back
To your mermaids!
You are far below my salt”.
Penelope, in this poem, is a woman that has woken up to the burden Ulysses has been discarding in her life. The lady-in-waiting does not wait on him anymore. Penelope is free when she endorses her strength as a woman.
LikeLike
Text and picture by Mausilinda.
LikeLike
Very sad and beautiful. A reminder of the Penelope in all of us, waiting for true love to come back, perhaps forgetting that it was only true for a moment.
>
LikeLike