What a wonderful time I have had with Maureen Thorson’s final prompt for 2024 poem-a-day challenge: “And now for our last prompt of the year – optional, as always! Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend. . .” Partly because I have revisited one of my all time favorite poets, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), modern American poet. Partly because I have learned more about Heliodora, the first known woman astrologer, ca. 2nd or 3rd century.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/h-d
Heliodora: Gift of the Sun
for H.D., priestess/poet
Heliodora, gift of the sun,
Heliodora, astrologer, were you
the only one?*
You charted Saturn, Mercury & Venus,
on papyrus positioned Jupiter & Mars.
Heliodora, you prophesied births &
guided lovers by planets, by sun.
Heliodora, oracle of constellations,
the moon and its phases. You foretold
mysteries of eclipses, solar & lunar.
H.D., you, too, seeker & seer of mysteries,
poet/priestess, you divined
the memory of Heliodora.
Did she speak to you in a dream?
Did she prophesy in your “writing on the wall?”**
Did Heliodora appear in your “overmind?”
Heliodora, the ancient one,
send me a message through the stars,
the planets, the constellations,
Andromeda, Cygnus, Cassiopeia (the Queen)!
What do you seers foresee for me?
Jacquelyn Markham (4/30/2024)
*Archeology supports evidence of Heliodora, first known woman astrologer in the Greco-Roman world. **See Notes On Thought & Vision by H.D.
***Image of Heliodora courtesy of Missouri Museum of Art and Archeology
Poet Voice 