To splash into the western deep
Sonnets. "when the Pleiades flee mighty Orion / and plunge into the misty deep" and a youthful adventure with Maia
I walk out to open the door of the chicken coop well before dawn, and from September to about now, I can see Orion pacing across the sky. In November, the constellation he eternally chases, the Pleiades, often sinks below the western horizon before I’m outside to glance upward.
I’ve written about Orion before, offering him up in a post that counts as last year’s holiday piece. These sonnets surely shouldn’t be mistaken for that kind of message, though.
Orion and the Pleiades—the “Seven Sisters”—inspired three sonnets. Hesiod, in his Works and Days, offers two lines that also seem to frame them:
when the Pleiades flee mighty Orion and plunge into the misty deep
But I include adolescent urges, too, which also resonate with Orion’s various drives and desires.
Other sonnets:
Here’s where the sonnets stand:
I. Celestial Flight To splash into the western deep he runs an arc from eastern evening light, barefoot through winter's icy night. His practice practiced while I sleep. Before dawn a splash, glint of belt, a hand— its adventurous wave, no clenched fist, flashed eastward. By sun’s seepage kissed, a new day rises, obeying Apollo’s command. Orion’s carnal lusts mark his path: forsaking other stars Seven Sisters to pursue, wrestling Taurus to stay the bull’s deadly wrath. In winter skies, the hunter glides to amuse the gods who tied his limbs to lights. He soars, never falling from his heights. II. Terrestrial Sauna Eyes trained low meet feet and toes, bare to grip redwood planks, tensed as sprinters listening for the bark of starting pistol shot. To fly an arc of footed speed outpacing scolds, unhearing commands to STOPRUNNINGONTHEDOCK. Rule breaker runs and slides to splash. Her elbows tight against her steaming sides, Maia’s dark eyes watch, to judge. Might my naked splash impress? So, from sauna, dim dock, to dark water I soar sideways, luminous butt exposed, and toss a rascal wave over my shoulder. III. Icy Heaven Water Clouded in their cool, Seven Sisters hold their arms coyly, covering the boys’ interest. All whirl in frothy soap and rinse in cold. When ice-water quells, star-eyes glint in mist. Above, never closer to the Sisters, Orion wheels. Below, we lower necks into water, curiously warm. Warmer than the air, at least—a chaste balm on tingling skin, freshing cold that sharply heals. Swarmed Pleiades know to cluster in the sky and so it is with boys and girls sans clothes. Yet wet sisters defer to boys to dock and dry, while in deeper water, glowing Maia pulls me close, presses her warming breasts to my chest. Lips thrill the other’s neck, and we’re possessed.
How it came together
The process was painstaking, actually. I’d scrawled notes and ideas for months, but succeeded only in drilling dry holes. In early November my notes meandered, and I let them gather dust under the coffee table. But I fell back and on December 10 came up with some ideas. I drew them from my daily morning trek in pre-dawn dark—especially if the morning was moonless and had that crystalline clarity that the cold often brings.
I looked for Orion and, further west, the Pleiades, the “Seven Sisters.” The Sisters are shrouded in stellar dust, which is why they never seem to have point-like resolution. You sometimes can see them better if you look slightly askance. And Orion, who by December was far to the west, became almost humorous: his belt obscured by barren trees and his hand flung above the horizon, almost as if to wave at me in the morning.
Maia, by the way, is the eldest of the Seven Sisters.
Some readers might remember my incremental approach to putting sonnets together. I run through drafts on separate sheets of paper, all of them dated. Most of my changes appear in the penned scrawls, though not all of them. I do make changes as I “clean up” the drafts at the keyboard.
I have my own version of what musician Kim Deal calls a “hierarchy of paper.” She adds a fun twist that I’ve not tried out: she uses paper plates:
Her lyrics evolve in a very quirky way: Deal writes by hand on a “hierarchy of paper.” She’ll start out jotting lyrics on “plain white paper, or lined thin paper,” and the best of her scribbles move to scalloped paper plates. Once Deal is headed to the studio, she switches to folders taped together “because you can hear paper plates moving and stuff, and they won’t stay on music stands” (H/T Austin Kleon).
I think I’ll have to try the paper plate trick.
For the obsessive writing archeologist out there in newsletterland, I’ve pulled the writing notes and revisions into a PDF (10 pages). These three sonnets went through some contortions.
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Tags: sonnet, Orion, Maia, Oreads, Plaiedes, sauna, lake, erotic, youth