Sestina

 

 

M.A. Cody, US   She Awakes in the Night   She awakes in the night to the sound of a flute, a fluid blue melody in a minor key floating darkly toward her like a ghost rising up a well. Not to freeze with fear takes an act of will, not to meet it at the bedroom door, another. Breathless, she waits for the piper to breathe and break the spell. But the spell of the music doesn't break. She thinks of Syrinx—how wicked Pan made his flute, simply lashing one hollow reed to another. She thinks—a sequence of tones might create a key. She thinks—just the perfect pitch might shatter her will. Her door will unlock, and she will give herself up— a thoughtless, physical thing—to notes that move up and down her trembling treble staff body and break above "favor" in cascading waves at the will of the one who fingers the notes and winds the flute, slurs the legato, tongues the rhythm, keeps the key. She quietly lips the surface for another breath, waits with drowned hearing, breathless, for another melodic invitation to give in, give up, watching the doorknob and waiting for her lost key to scrape in the lock, for key pins and driver pins to break into alignment like silver keys on the flute. The piper's tune intensifies. She fears she will yield to the pulsing, rhythmic tide, rise against will, sense, a whirling waterspout, breaking another among the fragile anchors of her life. The flute ascends to frenzy, rises higher still, up, up beyond her comprehension, fear, to crest and break upon her—a lonely, storm-haunted key—and is silenced. Uncharted. Unnamed. Unknown. Under lock and key, she sits and braids soaking hair, concentrates to will the flute's return, the tumbler in the lock to break free, the door to open and reveal another sublime pastoral god—beast from cloven hoof up to belly of wind—who will conjure from the flute one wistful-key melody after another, keeping her will in flux and her senses stirred up, until an answer should break forth from her own flute.   Editor's Note: In classical mythology, Syrinx (Greek Συριγξ) was a nymph and a follower of Artemis, known for her chastity. Pursued by the amorous Greek god Pan, she ran to the river's edge and asked for assistance from the river nymphs. In answer, she was transformed into hollow water reeds that made a haunting sound when the god's frustrated breath blew across them. Pan cut the reeds to fashion the first set of pan pipes, which were thenceforth known as syrinx.     About M.A. Cody, US   M. A. Cody lives in Jonesborough, Tennessee (US), and teaches early American and Native American literature at East Tennessee State University. His poetry has appeared in Fury and The Howl. His short stories have appeared in Pisgah Review, Short Story, Yemassee, Potpourri and Fury. His songs have been recorded by such recording artists as Gary Morris and Glen Campbell. This is M.A. Cody's first appearance in Sketchbook.