IN LOVE WITH SAPPHO

I will make it brief, of how I met Sappho.

Once every week, I get into PoemHunter.com to feast upon some classical poetry. At one time, I came across a short verse, consisting of two stanzas. It was quite short to last even half a minute but it was vast enough to tell a story of the poet – her denial to marry her young lover. Perhaps that is what poetry is – to encompass the large of story within laconic expression by words.

Of course I love you

Of course I love you

but if you love me,

marry a young woman!

I couldn’t stand it

to live with a young

man, I being older.

The lyric sounded intimate, as if it’s a song of a singer whom I stalk frequently. There seem to be some connection, though weak, between the mysterious poet and me. But the cruel truth stands ugly between us; she’s passed away thousand years ago and I am youth only, who has seen, of recent, the infancy face of poetry and writes also rough and rudimentary poems.

It could be the magic of the poetry, perhaps the divinity of her, preserved in the recess of her lyrics, which beckoned at me. I read the poem several times till I came to the point of really feeling that it was to me whom she’s referring to and I felt sorry for her. Perhaps, she might have been forgiven by her young lover also, then.

I carried on with many of her poems. I thought of getting more of her by searching in Google. But midway, I stopped! Some people appear wonderful when still unknown and mysterious. And Sappho was one poet. I could know her through her poetry. This is the magic of poetry – though it hides more of poet, it reveals even more because poetry is ‘poet’s tree’ by which s/he sustains eternally.

And as I read, I could feel the Greek, looking at me through the mist of time, with the eyes of her poetry and singing songs of her feelings to me.

You may forget but

You may forget but

let me tell you

this: someone in

some future time

will think of us.

Yes! How true! Now that I know you, I shall never forget you, Sappho dear.