Face-Off
A Heliotrope/Heliotropium Poem
By Mary Dezember
Author of stories and poetry as portals to possibilities.
Crushing me to purple, you
are no god.
Your appeal is mythology.
I bloom,
with each floret befriending
the next,
to what, when, and whom
I choose—
and always to this—a prevailing
prevalence beyond you:
dimensional cosmic fragrant waves
perceived as mountain meadows
of music and math,
fields of flowing grasses,
icy snow dying to rivers,
rivers rushing to my sea call,
walking sticks hugging
towering trees,
rainbow wings of dragonflies,
the delicate flight of butterflies,
the buzz, boon and beacon
of every air-flight
or ground-bound
tiny glorious guy;
those minuscule colossi of love
who make the Earth work, thriving
and performing perfectly
in my perfume.
With your hollow ego eyes,
you cannot see.
I am no nymph.
My face is the receiver
of the honeyed crackling in the air
offering me a global garden
in the wilds of peace.
Beyond you,
stained-glass hallelujahs
and heady aromas
spiral multi-faceted in my ocean
mist, shattering your artificial temple.
Shoddy architecture!
Love doesn’t crush.
To you, you are all about you.
You, Helio, are the trope.
And loving you is no more
than a tropium addiction.
I am no addict.
In twilight, the world shifts;
your other interests
cater to you. I don’t
wait for your return, because
nights, I pulse even more
vibrantly.
Breaker to blossom,
I exist in every way
without you.
Helios,
I am not facing you in love.
This is a face-off.
I face you to say:
Crushing me to purple, you
are no god. And
I am no flower.
NOTES:
Heliotropium is a purple or violet flower in the heliotrope family. It is a flower that—based on Greek myth—faces the sun god, Helios (Apollo), in longing for him. Before being a flower, heliotropium was Klytie (or Clytie), a water nymph (an Oceanid), daughter of the pre-Olympian (Titan) god and goddess Oceanus and Tethys. Apollo once loved Klytie but then left her for someone new.
Sources:
“Leucothea and Clytie” in Metamorphoses by Ovid, Book 4, translated by Brookes More, from the Theoi Texts Library: https://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses4.html
“Clytie (Oceanid),” Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clytie_(Oceanid)#cite_note-FOOTNOTEChalkomatas202295-9
“Heliotropium,” Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliotropium
The etymology of trope and tropium is “turn” or “change.”
Poem and blog post text:
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