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Teresia Sherley
Waking in the Sussex dewfall with the first light showing through,
Hearing English rustlings, stirrings, as the day begins anew,
Grateful for surprise, survival, for my exiled life with you
As my lawless mind betrays me and Iâm neither here nor there,
Neither bride nor wife nor mother, still sublimely unaware
That there was a place called England, that we had a life to shareâ
So in no place I lie hearing sounds that give me to the past,
Wagons creaking, kitchen clatterâbut I know the dawn has passed
And no call from dawnâs muezzin told me night had gone at last.
Still I stay here for a moment not consenting quite to wake,
Over Esfahanâs green gardens I remember morning break,
Yellow light on pools and plane trees, and the shadows that they make
And the sudden breeze of sunrise, like a nervous loverâs hands
Hardly touching, but still touching, as my body understands,
Like a whisper that insists on lifeâs importunate demands
Tugging me to love and pleasure, to what passes as we sleep,
To the rosesâ quick unfolding, to the moments that wonât keep,
To the ruin of a childhood, and the tears that parents weep.
When you begged my hand in marriage and the shah gave his consent
Gossip called me Christian payment or a pretty compliment
But Iâd seen you and considered what a marriage with you meantâ
Strangeness always my companion, at my side and in my bed,
Unknown syllables exulting in my mouth and in my head
Silences I couldnât fathom, all my faux pas left unsaid,
But whatâs marriage but a launching of a life to the unknown?
Whether yoked to some poor dervish, or the partner to a throne,
Womenâs lives stay inextricably dependent and alone:
And the glamour of your difference was rubbed amber to a straw,
As I trembled like a mouse beneath some catâs capricious paw
Barely breathing âYesâ when asked if I approved of what I saw.
If the hazards I accepted were no worse than others choose
Still I feared my life without you if it seemed I might refuseâ
All the ways I could be left alone with nothing left to lose,
So I came to you, became your wife and, as you said, your friend,
Ignorant of everythingâexcept my nagging need to spend
All my days within the dream-life I could not allow to end.
Promises proliferate; an alien in a curious land,
Drawn to lives I thought Iâd be a part of, love, and understand,
Clutching at what canât be closed on by a fumbling foreign handâ
This I shared with you, my darling, when I saw you lost, unsure
As the conversation chanced on turns you hadnât bargained for,
As Rejection smiled urbanely, and Discretion closed the door,
Left you what you were, a stranger, and you sawâwhatever you didâ
Though the phantom Friendship beckoned, smiled and simpered, she
eluded
All attempts to hold her: you stayed welcomed, baffled, and excluded.
This we shared in Europe, feted in Vienna, Prague and Spain
As the entertaining envoys of the shahâs exotic reign,
While the gaudy greetings withered to politely phrased disdainâ
And the Vatican, remember, when beneath St. Peterâs dome
We were gawked at as the ciceronesâ chicest sight in Rome,
Dogged by strangeness till we rested in the place that you call home
Where you looked in vain for childhood that youâd thought could
never change
And you realized that from now on life at best could rearrange
Vistas lived through, an...
