Myrtle poem

Apollo and Daphne
by Tiepolo (detail)

Trees that take quasi-human form and humans who morph into trees – mythology and literature have enough of these to form a fair-sized forest, from the dryads (wood nymphs) of classical mythology to Tolkien’s ents.

Of Trebah’s many trees, the myrtles seem to me most human. And in one version of the Greek myth of Myrrha, it is a myrtle into which the fugitive Myrrha is transformed (other versions have it as a myrrh tree). This poem takes that myth as its starting point.

Myrtle

Your lean trunk twisted contrapposto,

limbs flung forward and back to display

their sculpted muscle, inviting caress –

bark soft as skin but cool to the touch,

on the cusp of mortality. Did you stumble

through this undergrowth as Myrrha fleeing

her father’s sword, dark hair snagging on briars,

clothes shredded by thorns? Feel as in a dream

your stiffening legs, toes rooting in earth,

his shamed breath panting behind you as sap

spread like anaesthetic through your veins?

But when he blundered blindly past you,

on into the wood, and you knew that time

had stopped, was it dismay you felt or rapture?

                                                                        Tom Scott