"Prothalamion for Linnet" by Marly Youmans

Praise to a silvery
Stream, a certain stream
In the woods at Carterhaugh—
Girls cannot go there, no, not with gold
On their fingers, gold at the throat,
Gold, gold in their hair, nor
Any treasure that belongs to woman,
For fear of the light-fingered elf,
Pilferer of rings and maidenheads,
Fey one who lingered by a well of stones
Where a spring passed from earth
Into air. Yet
On this very day, Linnet
Goes there, holding her mother’s hand
With her right hand, and Linnet goes there,
Holding her father’s hand with her left,
And she sees where the old queenly magic drifts,
Gold motes moving in the air,
Shifting and juggling,
Seeking to become a spell,
Seeking to come together, to pilfer, to change,
Seeking after Linnet, her
Mother’s daughter, her father’s child.

Praise to the lineage of Linnet,
Praise to her mother, the motherless
Daughter of the Laird of Carterhaugh,
Dreamer, lover of tales and songs,
Who fell in love with a story, a bard-ballad,
A rumor of trees, of streams, of an elf,
If he was an elf, and not a man.
She could not help but ride,
To press deep into leaves of Carterhaugh,
Letting the branches switch at her arms and face.
And there at the silvery stream
That pulses from the heaped rocks of the well,
She plucked a double rose, a red rose,
By the green wand of its stem: she
Trembling, wordless, near-certain,
Braving the forbidden forest to see
Worlds of furling and unfurling in the rose,
The green, steady shaft of the stem,
The vertical falling
Endlessly into the bed of gold pollen,
The prick of the rose thorn,
The drop of blood so rich, so lush, so black
In the deepening green,
In the shadow of Carterhaugh woods.

Praise to the rosebush, praise to the wand,
Praise to the shapes tangled under leaves,
Praise to the gold in her hair,
Praise to fair Janet, who then rode to rescue,
Who at the star-shot, elf-shot midnight hour
Tightened, wound
Arms around Tam Lin, he enchanted
To fire salamander, to
Diamond-marked band of snake, to lion,
To shag-backed bear, to red-winged coal—
Praise to she who pilfered a blessing,
Dragged down a man
From the silver-shod, gold-shod horse,
Stole an elfin, earthly husband
From the hell-tithe
Harem of a queen.

Even before Linnet was
Held at the right and the left
By hands, she was there
With the leaves at Carterhaugh,
Bathed in the rose light—a ball
Of cells rotating amid the gold motes,
(A fairy ball fit for a dance, for a princess,
A sphere dropped into a well
To be fetched forth by a magic frog
Who wants to be kissed and married.)
She was in the rose womb,
The pollen bed of Janet, her mother,
Daughter of the Laird of Carterhaugh,
Daughter of long pedigree,
Daughter of force and daring,
Daughter of the bridal dream,
And Linnet was also there, rose-lit, unseen, under
The seeking, pilfering, fey-tinged
Fingertips of Tam Lin, the captive, the grandson
And heir of the Earl of Roxburgh, a man
Fallen from a horse and Christendom at once,
Snatched, caught by the fairy queen,
Caged in the fairy hill
Or kept fenced and hobbled
In green deeps of Carterhaugh forest,
Tam Lin recalling the mortal dream
Through a haze of sorcery
(The fairy queen shaking drowse
And fragrance from a flower),
Tam Lin stealing diamond rings
Or maidenheads in a mist, dimly
Searching for one whose heart meant fire,
Lion-brash, lion-rash woman, woman
As headlong as a mother bear,
Woman tight-wound like a feeding python.

At dawn, Linnet dreamed a stream,
A certain, sure stream,
A stream threading silver through the forest,
Silver bedded below leaves of Carterhaugh.
Girls must not go there, not even with a hand
Held by a mother on the right, not
Even with a hand held by a father at left.
Girls from the kitchen must not go there,
Girls from the castle laundry must not go there,
Girls from the village must not go there,
Even girls from the city must not go there,
Not even with needle and scissors for swords,
Not even with polished serving trays for shields.
But this very morning Linnet goes there,
Linnet the storyteller, Linnet the singer of tales.
Linnet goes there with her father and mother
(One at her right hand, one at her left)
And kneels, with each of them kneeling beside,
And Linnet splashes her face with drops
And with the gold-floating motes,
Flotsam of a broken spell—
Her face becomes the face of beauty,
Her face becomes the face of strength,
Her earthly face becomes unearthly.
Linnet’s mother and father at right and left
Weave a crown for her, all crossed roses and wands,
As the sun pinwheels through the trees
That scatter her skirts with leaves,
As the stream murmurs, singing
A ballad, a red
And a green song,
A rose and thorn birthright,
A bridal song.

 

 

Marly Youmans is the award-winning author of thirteen books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent novels are A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage,Glimmerglass, and Maze of Blood. Her recent poetry books are The Throne of Psyche (Mercer University Press, 2011), The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press, 2012), and the long post-apocalyptic adventure, Thaliad (Phoenicia Publishing of Montreal, 2012.) "Prothalamion for Linnet" and "Night Journey from Kingfisher" are from a series of poems inspired by oríkì. 

"Prothalamion for Linnet" © 2015 Marly Youmans. This poem may not be reproduced in any form without the author's express written permission.