Medusa

"In your bedroom you keep an iron cage
Where a blackbird sings her freedom song
For you know the true value of having slaves
They sing the saddest of songs"

Brendan Perry


*****

Somewhere along long roads, by a shore
marked by the tides
and by a century of rain.

…She was not always a monster.
She wore her hair long,
steeped in the salt of the surf,
and had vast eyes
in which ships went dark.

In her chamber stood a cage.
Within it, a black bird sang,
repeating in shifting tones:
“I am free,”
“You are free,”
“We are free” —
yet I could not believe that bird.

She knew how to give me a key
and blast what little memory I had.
For many years I took Medusa
not for a name,
but for a sentence.

And whoever has once loved her
can no longer look into the eyes of others —
he seeks only that gaze
which knows how to turn one into stone.

But one day, in the utter silence
of a long, stony non-being,
I finally heard
my own voice.

Medusa remained within her temple.
And I go on.
Unhurried. Unafraid.
With scars as my map.

And once again I see eyes
for whose sake
I remain alive.

2025