Curse

Curse
Inspired by 'The Lady of Shalott' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

She had been planning it for months.
Maybe years-it was hard to tell. She marked the weeks
With bits of red fiber spun round warp threads,
Freckling the web's misty designs
with the tally of her being. But the room was so dim
In the day, and lit so duskily with flickering fuelless lamps
At night, and her without the division of sleep
And with the motion of her hands over her loom
Melting all the hours together-it was easy to lose track.

But she had planned it, and that carefully.
She had delighted in the web she wove for many years
(Many more than she knew), but the day
Was always meant to come when she would be more
Than half sick of shadows.
She remembered the whisper; she never forgot it.
And yes, she wondered what the curse
May be. She thought she may lose her loom and web,
Or her mirror, or perhaps, least tragedy, her life.
The question, then, was to await a sight
Worth bringing it all upon herself to see.
So she awaited, and twined red wisps.

She pictured it clearly within her:
How she would leap from her loom and bound swiftly
To the window, the one glance she would catch
Not of murky shapes in a glass, but of colors
As God had painted them, and lights hanging in the sky
As they were meant to hang, shining with feverish joy,
Not guttering on a dusty wall. She did not sing
Of her plans, as she sang of all other images in her mind,
For fear her threads might slip or mirror break
In horror of even the traitorous thought.

Many things tempted her through the months-
Or years, then, years past the smoothness of her face-
But not until Lancelot did she know for certain.
She had thought it would be a sight
That decided her; the lights, the colors,
Everything she had wished of the world and never had,
Everything she had planned for.
And he was sight enough. But when the moment came,
It was his song. The nonsense "tirra lirra"
Of a gladhearted courting tune for cloudless skies,
The strange, amazing sound of music from a throat not hers,
Made her stumble to her feet
And cross the room with three long strides
And bright eyes and breathlessly parted lips, to hang her hair
From the window that faced Camelot and the road.

There! She caught it-
Though he was already departing, she caught his song
As she might have caught a falling leaf in her hand.
She held it tight, tight, every waver of its notes,
Every grain of its texture.
Then she felt in her chest the crack of the mirror
(Her ears were too full to hear it) and her web
Flew out the window past her head.
"The curse is come upon me," she cried toward Lancelot.
He did not turn around, but that was all right, because
Her eyes were not on him, but on her weaving,
Landing in the river, soddening and dissolving in its currents.

"The curse is come upon me," she shouted into the wind again.
And you may be sure

That she laughed.