Penelope Returning
Review of Poetry Collection by Susan Ford Wiltshire
The title poem, “Penelope Returning” begins:
“Alone on the shore of Ithaca, Penelope sat
absorbed in the shimmer of the dusk-bronzed sea…”
After Odysseus’ return, she decides to go on a journey of her own, alone, to Egypt. When she returns,
“… To most she seems the same,
though the sun’s magic has settled on her skin,
her hair gleams free as a dancing child’s,
turquoise eyes ashine with something new.
…
She rises, returns to the hearth of her heart’s desire,
knows at last that Ithaca is not the journey
but the sharing of the stories
that make the journey known.”
Often, the poet sees her own life through the filter of Greek and Latin classics. Her knowledge of ancient texts gives her insight into her presentday experiences. And her presentday emotions help her understand what others thought and felt thousands of years ago.
I especially enjoyed the final stanza of “To Vergil, His Birthday.”
“Shadows change, lengthen, contract,
fade and come again,
like kindness or a friend.
What you see depends on where you stand.”
In others, she calls on her background in farming to clarify her own emotions. One of my favorites deals with the post-college departure of her daughter, the second child to leave the nest. “Scissored” ends:
“For me, it was completion, a gate
I traversed at the far end of a field
I tended for over twenty years —
breaking, tilling, planting, cultivating,
weeding, protecting, fending off
the terrifying pass of storms.
What those dear two do not know is that
I too begin new voyages to far lands
of mind and spirt. Only a simulacrum mom
waits hopefully home by the phone.
I pause at the gate, waft a prayer
of gratitude for the harvested field behind,
take measure of the trackless plain ahead,
and slowly start the crossing.”
This is a book I will often return to.
