“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together;
it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.” ― Plato, The Symposium
What is the magic that draws two people together?
Antony and Cleopatra, no beauty, but a clever mind,
an enchanting voice, knowing seven languages, botany,
pharmacology, poisoning prisoners.
And Antony? A warrior’s physique, wives and women,
Dionysus, his god, delivering wine, vegetation, fruitfulness,
pleasure and madness.
Why did Cleopatra take her 200 ships, leaving Antony
in the battle against Octavious? Antony would lose without her
and she wanted power.
What is it in the air that wafted from her skin
in the Egyptian heat that held men spellbound and lustful
as wild beasts? When the sun burned on her skin, the musk
rose from her body and a man could want nothing else forever.
Passion consumed their lives for fourteen years until
they both died by suicide. No one has found their grave
site. Why do we look for it?
To believe in a love so true that death is the only
consummation? And when love ends, how flat our robust world
becomes. We want to run away. But to a sword as Antony did?
An asp which Cleopatra put to her breast? The long healing, the tears
shed, the emptiness. How do we become whole?
By loving again.
Paula Goldman’s book, The Great Canopy, won the Gival Press Poetry award, and was honorable mention for the Independent Booksellers’ Award. Her work has appeared in theravensperch, Passager, Visions International, Rattle, Across the Margin, Oyez Review, Slant, Briar Cliff Review, Calyx, Passager, Ekphrasis, Prairie Schooner, Manhattanville Review, Cream City Review, among others.
