Pot of Basil

Aliki — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 22:33:25 +0000
Pot of Basil
After Alexander, After Keats, After Boccaccio
	
In the painting, Isabella stands there, blue
in the blue-green light of her love.  Her dress,
voluminous, drapes her lonely body, and illuminates 
	
the canvas.  The laced black bodice dims
the light, holds her shoulder, wantonly bare,
back from the pot. 
	
		     And here,
another day has gone with you, and I
still cook for us two. 
	
(Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow’s weed
  And ‘scape at once from Hope’s accursed bands
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow)
	
This recipe calls for basil, calls on me
to go back to the garden that is so full of you:
rotting tomato, pepper, zucchini’s curling
	
brown leaves.
	           Only your spices
get my attention.  How can I 
	
expect them to season mildly when they’re
the only thing of yours that has stayed?  This recipe
calls for basil.  I go to the garden to see.
	
The green shadows of Isabella’s neck
deepen as she leans against the ledge
that holds the vessel with her lover’s head. 
	
One hand clings to the edge,
the other caresses the roundest part
of the mildewy pot.  
	
(His image in the dusk she seem’d to see,
  And to the silence made a gentle moan. . .)
Time won’t keep you from me.  You
	
are everywhere.  In your garden,
I picked some leaves of basil, crushed them
between my fingers.  The green always stains,  
	
and the scent bores itself  into me
through my pores, fills my body.
Everything is basil.
	
She closes her eyes; she sees
his eyes, his wild hair mingling with soil
and roots. She dreams she touches him.
	
(Sound mournfully upon the winds and low
  For simple Isabel is soon to be
Among the dead: She withers, like a palm)
	
On the last night, you tasted and smelled of basil.
It seeped out through your skin and washed
out everything.  I can’t get away 
	
from the spicy-sweetness; the air absorbs it.
When I sleep, it surrounds our bed. When I open my mouth
to breathe, it drowns me.
	
Isabella is dying in the basil-colored light.
She is sinking into the shadows, thinking of him
always.  She is giving tears to the soil
	
and waiting for something to grow.
~~~
View John White Alexander’s painting.
Aliki Caloyeras

Pot of Basil
