"Libra from the Signs of the Zodiac" by Jordaens‘Libra’ and Other Poetry by Patricia Rogers Crozier The Society January 23, 2025 Beauty, Culture, Love Poems, Poetry 14 Comments . Libra There in my hand I held a crystal vial Of distillation potent, red, and sweet, By which my broken heart was put on trial, And golden apples scattered at my feet. Ask not the name of him who gave to me The dark elixir, nor the price I paid, For though it was a “gift,” it was not free, And I did pay, brazen and unafraid. It was a Love Spell, cast in liquid form, Whose drinker’s heart it would intoxicate— A percolation swift and wild and warm Into the blood, into the veins of fate. No hatred or indifference could stand Against the passion steeping in this draught. A heart once harnessed heeded its command, So dreadful was the power of its craft. I grasped that vial and ran through miles of heath, The wind pursuing, snapping at my back Like hellhounds driving me with razor teeth, Into a night unfathomably black. My plan in motion, nothing else remained Besides administration of this brew. Once tasted, swallowed and completely drained, The clouds would break beneath the midnight blue, And you would love me as I’d loved you first. With eyes beguiled, you’d look at me anew. My face, once hideous, would be reversed, Becoming fairest of them all to you. I waited for the second sun to drop Behind the singing woods with stars a-light, To creep along the garden wall and stop Beneath your window, open to the night. Then… Pausing there, I weighed this plan of mine Amid the leaves that whispered in the wind. The jasmine flooded out its fragrant wine And in my blood I knew that I had sinned. I’d sinned against the Multitude above, In scorning heaven’s order and decree, And reaching for the sacred cords of love Above the mortal reach allotted me. And likewise, trespassed you, whose heart I sought, In counting your free will of little worth. Your priceless love as something to be bought As any common object of the Earth. Then falling on a blanket of decay, Beneath the honeysuckle laden vines I broke the vial and spilled my spell away, Revolted by my heart and its designs. . . I, Katyusha Summer gone and autumn nearly ending, All the crimson leaves gone long ago, To the steppe the northern wind is sending Silver clouds of winter, full of snow. By the river waiting for her lover Stands a maiden silent in the trees. Twisted branches dim the sky above her, Where the blossoms once danced on the breeze. By the river, dark and undulating Stands a maiden beautiful but stern. It is I, Katyusha, ever waiting For a man who promised to return. When the pear and apple trees were blooming, He and I would meet here in the night. Vows were spoken though a war was looming, In the west a war he had to fight. Who can tell how many times this orchard Shed its flowers in the summer wind? I, Katyusha, lived with spirit tortured, Without answer to my letters penned. Famine took my sister and my mother. Still I lived, immune to hunger’s blade. In my heart raged famine of another, In my mind a thousand horrors played. On a mound of dirt, the sunlight falling Marks a grave of fifty dead at least. I, Katyusha, hear the vultures calling, Angry to be driven from their feast. To the front goes letter after letter, Filled with all the hope that I can give. “If your heart now bids you to forget her, Still, Katyusha longs to know you live!” Bluebirds singing, golden sunlight warmed me In the river, sheets and clothes in hand. Down the bank marched soldiers who informed me He had perished in some far-off land. Then they left me standing in the water, Off to bring such news to other ears. In my eyes the noonday sun grew hotter, Burning red behind a wall of tears. River of my love and of my dreaming, Hold my body in your dark embrace. Give my spirit to your vapor steaming, His will know to find it in this place. Once again, the winter ice is creeping. Hairs of silver glitter in the reeds. Still I wait, my lonely vigil keeping, In the place I know his journey leads. By the water where the fruit trees shiver, Stands Katyusha, willowy and fair. Noontide lifts the mist along the river, Leaving nothing but the sun and air. . . Patricia Rogers Crozier has been published in The Washington Post. She holds a B.S. in Physics from Mississippi College. She resides in Gulf Breeze, Florida and works at Publix. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. Trending now: 14 Responses Mark Stellinga January 23, 2025 These are both magnificent pieces, Patricia. A reader-friendly cadence with remarkably taught rhyme, rarely found these days, by comparison. Two of the finest I’ve encountered here on the SCP over the past few years. I hope you’ll keep posting… 🙂 Reply Roy Eugene Peterson January 23, 2025 Both of these poems are eloquent and elegant in style, mood, and rhyme. As a former student at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Germany and Russian Foreign Area Officer, I was particularly struck by your use of “Katyusha.” That had two meaning for me” 1,) The “Katyusha” is a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II and it continued through my time as a multiple rocket launcher on the back of a truck. 2.) “Katyusha” is a Soviet patriotic folk song and military march composed by Matvey Blanter in 1938, with lyrics in Russian written by the Soviet poet Mikhail Isakovsky. It gained fame during World War II as a patriotic song, inspiring the population to serve and defend their land in the war effort. Source: “Wikipedia.” As singer with the Russian Choir at the U.S. Army Russian Institue and later as a diplomat who sometimes was called upon to sing Russian songs, I remembered there also was this Russian song that I believed inspired you to write such a beautiful poem. Some of the common elements are: Song: “Apple and pear trees blossomed…” Poem: “When the apple and pear trees were blossoming.” Song: “By the river, dark and undulating…” Poem: “Katyusha went out onto a river bank,” Song: “Vows were spoken though a war was looming, In the west a war he had to fight.” Poem: “And to a soldier at a distant border,” Song: “About the one whose letters she kept dear.” Poem: “Without answer to my letters penned.” I believe you were greatly inspired by this Russian song and that your overwhelmingly lovely and sentimental poem should live on. Reply Marguerite January 23, 2025 Exactly! I know the author and she loves the Isakovsky song and wrote this as an epilogue to it. Reply Michael Vanyukov February 2, 2025 These are great observations, Roy. A detail that may be interesting from the linguistic standpoint, which also pertains to the usage of the name: “Katyusha” is an affectionate form of a neutral diminutive “Katya” of the name “(Y)ekaterina” (Catherine). Being affectionate, in Russian, it commonly would not be used by the person in reference to herself, as in the poem, – she would refer to herself exclusively as “Katya” (unless officially “Yekaterina”, along with the patronymic). In the song, it is the narrator who calls the girl “Katyusha.” As to the Katyusha rockets (affectionately called so by the Soviet WW2 soldiers because of their effect on the Germans; the actual name was rather like “Guards rocket/jet mortar”), murderous Hizballah has been using them until recently, when it was virtually destroyed, from top down, by exploding pagers that have got no affectionate names. Reply Joseph S. Salemi January 23, 2025 Both poems are very neatly and smoothly composed, with perfect rhymes. I did not understand the title of the first piece until I got to the dividing word “Then…”, which led to the statement “I weighed this plan of mine.” Clearly this reference is to the scales of Libra — the zodiac sign of balance, moderation, careful judgment, and proper discernment of what is good and bad. The speaker must choose whether to administer a love potion to her beau that will compel him to be enamored of her. After weighing the matter, she decides against it since it would violate his free will, and be contrary to divine law (“the Multitude above,” which might mean the Trinity or more likely the entire heavenly company of saints and angels). The larger issue that the poem raises is whether human love should be a free response, or an induced compulsion. The idea behind this poem is fascinating. Love potions and philtres, or magical spells to force love, are common in many cultures. The ancient world’s notion of Eros-Cupid as an irresistible force with his bow and arrow acknowledges that such compulsion can happen as the will of a god, but if the god is unwilling to act, desperate persons were always tempted to go to witches and magicians to force the issue by means of potions or charms. This poem adds a Christian element by having the speaker say that she has sinned by toying with the idea of using a love potion. I immediately thought of the Katyusha rocket, just as LTC Peterson did, when I started to read the second poem. But in Russian “Katyusha” is a diminutive for the name Yekaterina, so it is a girl’s nickname comparable to our Cathy or Katie. It was clear that the speaker is a young girl desperate to hear news of her lover, a soldier on active combat duty. Even when she is told of his death, the intensity of her love compels her to remain fixated on her lost soldier, and the italicized lines were terrifying for me: River of my love and of my dreaming, Hold my body in your dark embrace. Give my spirit to your vapor steaming, His will know to find it in this place. This shot through me with force, for it seems clearly an intention to commit suicide in the river. And the eight lines that follow, ending the poem, are frighteningly ambiguous: who is standing willowy and fair by the winter ice? Is it the living girl Katyusha, or only her waiting ghost? When I think of the thousands of Russian and Ukrainian girls who are now weeping for their slaughtered lovers in a stupid and unnecessary war prompted by our neocon scum, I am enraged. But this poem also brought me to tears. Reply Julian D. Woodruff January 23, 2025 Vivid, haunting, and altogether masterful. I had to go back & read 2 earlier contributions to this site from you that I’d missed. Thank you, and as Mr. Stellinga says, keep sending in poems! Reply Brian A. Yapko January 23, 2025 Both of these poems astonished me, Patricia, in the best possible way. The story of Katyusha is vivid and haunting, but it is “Libra” which really grabbed me. It is a superb dramatic monologue in the Browning vein — maybe even a little Coleridge — with a truly compelling first-person narration by a woman in obvious pain exercising questionable judgment in courting the supernatural yet also struggling with deep self-awareness and faith. Your imagery is goregous, your command of language and your use of rhyme is stellar here but it is your tone (perfectly in character) that I think is the greatest triumph — you make the supernatural fantasy convincing but you also make the attack of conscience and the abandonment of her plan as if the breaking of a spell. This could have come across as inorganic or lacking foundation or shallow but you pulled it off magnificently. You present this fascinating character with great fidelity and compassion and poetic craft. I really admire this piece. Reply Marguerite January 23, 2025 Thank you for your lovely comments about this poem. The author told me that she wrote this as an “epilogue of sorts” to the 1938 Mikhail Isakovsky song “Katyusha.” Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant January 23, 2025 It is a real privilege to come across two exquisite and admirably wrought poems that lift me to spheres of linguistic pleasure. I am especially taken with “Libra” – a sensual and beguiling piece that smolders with lust… then burns with a love so bright it transcends the terrestrial… and every shining image is tangible and breathtakingly beautiful – an inspirational accomplishment. Patricia, thank you! Reply Cynthia Erlandson January 24, 2025 These are both extremely impressive, and deeply mesmerizing! Reply Geoffrey Smagacz January 24, 2025 The first poem is spellbinding, iambically solid, and well crafted. The story makes sense. Reply Margaret Coats January 25, 2025 “Libra” presents a complicated story, as well as the single character who is the principal focus of interest. Yet the symbolic details of her narration give many clues as to what remains untold. I would say these details fascinate even the reader who does not care to give them long consideration. One is the golden apples. Such a thing always implies beauty, desire, and conflict. Being “scattered at my feet” suggests the myth of Atalanta, where the apples are scattered by a lover who thereby wins a race with Atalanta and gains her as his bride. The reluctance of the “Libra” speaker to name the giver of the potion, and her declaration that she paid for what she does not consider a real “gift,” implies that she gave herself to someone she did not love in order to gain power over the one she does love. Even before the reader gets to her interior conflict over actually administering the potion, this is more than enough to create the psychological terror (wind like “hellhounds driving me with razor teeth”) she feels. Another interesting feature is the literary diction throughout. The “sacred cords of love” recall many Biblical uses of “cords,” most of which represent frightening means of restraint or force (cords of hell, of poverty, of vanity). This kind of usage is reversed by the prophet Hosea [Osee], who speaks of God wishing to draw Israel to Himself with the “cords of Adam, bands of love.” The “cords of Adam” thus become a symbol of natural human love (especially that shared by persons conscious of blood relationship), and indeed a foreshadowing of the divine Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Thinking of this, it’s easy to see why the “Libra” speaker considers herself to have sinned against love by overreach and sacrilege. Her repetitions of “blood” carry a related negative connotation. And finally, I judge that the speaker’s self-hatred at the end comes not only because she sins against heaven and against the one she loves, but because she realizes her plans and potion may fail even if carried out. In such stories of traffic with evil, the person who attempts to gain supernatural advantage frequently achieves nothing because diabolic instructions are difficult to carry out. Consider the woman pausing below the bedroom window of the man she loves, and reflecting that she must, in order to succeed, insure that her love potion is “tasted, swallowed, and completely drained” by a person who finds her hideous. Even should she enter the bedchamber and get him to agree to drink, one spilt drop saves him. This kind of condition is often built into deals with devils, who only care about damning any human soul who trusts them. A splendid story, Patricia, told with magnificent poetic skill! Reply Adrian Fillion February 1, 2025 Excellent, Patricia. Reply Morrison West February 3, 2025 The words and meter you have chosen, and the imagery that you have commanded them to convey, is absolutely exquisite and your work should be read far and wide. Our view points into this modern world are often digital and these do not always properly connect us to either the real pain, or to the true beauty, of life. Key communication features are frequently glossed over in order to throw out a cheap headline snippet or to make a trite video compilation. I would argue that life is better lived, and that we are better connected as humans, when the input, these data which we choose to contemplate and consume with our brains, is better. And I am convinced if your output can somehow be cast as a more global net (i.e. published), that the world would have much better data to choose from to input into our minds and souls and many may even chose to read, and possibly even write, real poetry again. Kudos to you and many thanks for sharing such masterful works as these. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Mark Stellinga January 23, 2025 These are both magnificent pieces, Patricia. A reader-friendly cadence with remarkably taught rhyme, rarely found these days, by comparison. Two of the finest I’ve encountered here on the SCP over the past few years. I hope you’ll keep posting… 🙂 Reply
Roy Eugene Peterson January 23, 2025 Both of these poems are eloquent and elegant in style, mood, and rhyme. As a former student at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Germany and Russian Foreign Area Officer, I was particularly struck by your use of “Katyusha.” That had two meaning for me” 1,) The “Katyusha” is a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II and it continued through my time as a multiple rocket launcher on the back of a truck. 2.) “Katyusha” is a Soviet patriotic folk song and military march composed by Matvey Blanter in 1938, with lyrics in Russian written by the Soviet poet Mikhail Isakovsky. It gained fame during World War II as a patriotic song, inspiring the population to serve and defend their land in the war effort. Source: “Wikipedia.” As singer with the Russian Choir at the U.S. Army Russian Institue and later as a diplomat who sometimes was called upon to sing Russian songs, I remembered there also was this Russian song that I believed inspired you to write such a beautiful poem. Some of the common elements are: Song: “Apple and pear trees blossomed…” Poem: “When the apple and pear trees were blossoming.” Song: “By the river, dark and undulating…” Poem: “Katyusha went out onto a river bank,” Song: “Vows were spoken though a war was looming, In the west a war he had to fight.” Poem: “And to a soldier at a distant border,” Song: “About the one whose letters she kept dear.” Poem: “Without answer to my letters penned.” I believe you were greatly inspired by this Russian song and that your overwhelmingly lovely and sentimental poem should live on. Reply
Marguerite January 23, 2025 Exactly! I know the author and she loves the Isakovsky song and wrote this as an epilogue to it. Reply
Michael Vanyukov February 2, 2025 These are great observations, Roy. A detail that may be interesting from the linguistic standpoint, which also pertains to the usage of the name: “Katyusha” is an affectionate form of a neutral diminutive “Katya” of the name “(Y)ekaterina” (Catherine). Being affectionate, in Russian, it commonly would not be used by the person in reference to herself, as in the poem, – she would refer to herself exclusively as “Katya” (unless officially “Yekaterina”, along with the patronymic). In the song, it is the narrator who calls the girl “Katyusha.” As to the Katyusha rockets (affectionately called so by the Soviet WW2 soldiers because of their effect on the Germans; the actual name was rather like “Guards rocket/jet mortar”), murderous Hizballah has been using them until recently, when it was virtually destroyed, from top down, by exploding pagers that have got no affectionate names. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi January 23, 2025 Both poems are very neatly and smoothly composed, with perfect rhymes. I did not understand the title of the first piece until I got to the dividing word “Then…”, which led to the statement “I weighed this plan of mine.” Clearly this reference is to the scales of Libra — the zodiac sign of balance, moderation, careful judgment, and proper discernment of what is good and bad. The speaker must choose whether to administer a love potion to her beau that will compel him to be enamored of her. After weighing the matter, she decides against it since it would violate his free will, and be contrary to divine law (“the Multitude above,” which might mean the Trinity or more likely the entire heavenly company of saints and angels). The larger issue that the poem raises is whether human love should be a free response, or an induced compulsion. The idea behind this poem is fascinating. Love potions and philtres, or magical spells to force love, are common in many cultures. The ancient world’s notion of Eros-Cupid as an irresistible force with his bow and arrow acknowledges that such compulsion can happen as the will of a god, but if the god is unwilling to act, desperate persons were always tempted to go to witches and magicians to force the issue by means of potions or charms. This poem adds a Christian element by having the speaker say that she has sinned by toying with the idea of using a love potion. I immediately thought of the Katyusha rocket, just as LTC Peterson did, when I started to read the second poem. But in Russian “Katyusha” is a diminutive for the name Yekaterina, so it is a girl’s nickname comparable to our Cathy or Katie. It was clear that the speaker is a young girl desperate to hear news of her lover, a soldier on active combat duty. Even when she is told of his death, the intensity of her love compels her to remain fixated on her lost soldier, and the italicized lines were terrifying for me: River of my love and of my dreaming, Hold my body in your dark embrace. Give my spirit to your vapor steaming, His will know to find it in this place. This shot through me with force, for it seems clearly an intention to commit suicide in the river. And the eight lines that follow, ending the poem, are frighteningly ambiguous: who is standing willowy and fair by the winter ice? Is it the living girl Katyusha, or only her waiting ghost? When I think of the thousands of Russian and Ukrainian girls who are now weeping for their slaughtered lovers in a stupid and unnecessary war prompted by our neocon scum, I am enraged. But this poem also brought me to tears. Reply
Julian D. Woodruff January 23, 2025 Vivid, haunting, and altogether masterful. I had to go back & read 2 earlier contributions to this site from you that I’d missed. Thank you, and as Mr. Stellinga says, keep sending in poems! Reply
Brian A. Yapko January 23, 2025 Both of these poems astonished me, Patricia, in the best possible way. The story of Katyusha is vivid and haunting, but it is “Libra” which really grabbed me. It is a superb dramatic monologue in the Browning vein — maybe even a little Coleridge — with a truly compelling first-person narration by a woman in obvious pain exercising questionable judgment in courting the supernatural yet also struggling with deep self-awareness and faith. Your imagery is goregous, your command of language and your use of rhyme is stellar here but it is your tone (perfectly in character) that I think is the greatest triumph — you make the supernatural fantasy convincing but you also make the attack of conscience and the abandonment of her plan as if the breaking of a spell. This could have come across as inorganic or lacking foundation or shallow but you pulled it off magnificently. You present this fascinating character with great fidelity and compassion and poetic craft. I really admire this piece. Reply
Marguerite January 23, 2025 Thank you for your lovely comments about this poem. The author told me that she wrote this as an “epilogue of sorts” to the 1938 Mikhail Isakovsky song “Katyusha.” Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant January 23, 2025 It is a real privilege to come across two exquisite and admirably wrought poems that lift me to spheres of linguistic pleasure. I am especially taken with “Libra” – a sensual and beguiling piece that smolders with lust… then burns with a love so bright it transcends the terrestrial… and every shining image is tangible and breathtakingly beautiful – an inspirational accomplishment. Patricia, thank you! Reply
Cynthia Erlandson January 24, 2025 These are both extremely impressive, and deeply mesmerizing! Reply
Geoffrey Smagacz January 24, 2025 The first poem is spellbinding, iambically solid, and well crafted. The story makes sense. Reply
Margaret Coats January 25, 2025 “Libra” presents a complicated story, as well as the single character who is the principal focus of interest. Yet the symbolic details of her narration give many clues as to what remains untold. I would say these details fascinate even the reader who does not care to give them long consideration. One is the golden apples. Such a thing always implies beauty, desire, and conflict. Being “scattered at my feet” suggests the myth of Atalanta, where the apples are scattered by a lover who thereby wins a race with Atalanta and gains her as his bride. The reluctance of the “Libra” speaker to name the giver of the potion, and her declaration that she paid for what she does not consider a real “gift,” implies that she gave herself to someone she did not love in order to gain power over the one she does love. Even before the reader gets to her interior conflict over actually administering the potion, this is more than enough to create the psychological terror (wind like “hellhounds driving me with razor teeth”) she feels. Another interesting feature is the literary diction throughout. The “sacred cords of love” recall many Biblical uses of “cords,” most of which represent frightening means of restraint or force (cords of hell, of poverty, of vanity). This kind of usage is reversed by the prophet Hosea [Osee], who speaks of God wishing to draw Israel to Himself with the “cords of Adam, bands of love.” The “cords of Adam” thus become a symbol of natural human love (especially that shared by persons conscious of blood relationship), and indeed a foreshadowing of the divine Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Thinking of this, it’s easy to see why the “Libra” speaker considers herself to have sinned against love by overreach and sacrilege. Her repetitions of “blood” carry a related negative connotation. And finally, I judge that the speaker’s self-hatred at the end comes not only because she sins against heaven and against the one she loves, but because she realizes her plans and potion may fail even if carried out. In such stories of traffic with evil, the person who attempts to gain supernatural advantage frequently achieves nothing because diabolic instructions are difficult to carry out. Consider the woman pausing below the bedroom window of the man she loves, and reflecting that she must, in order to succeed, insure that her love potion is “tasted, swallowed, and completely drained” by a person who finds her hideous. Even should she enter the bedchamber and get him to agree to drink, one spilt drop saves him. This kind of condition is often built into deals with devils, who only care about damning any human soul who trusts them. A splendid story, Patricia, told with magnificent poetic skill! Reply
Morrison West February 3, 2025 The words and meter you have chosen, and the imagery that you have commanded them to convey, is absolutely exquisite and your work should be read far and wide. Our view points into this modern world are often digital and these do not always properly connect us to either the real pain, or to the true beauty, of life. Key communication features are frequently glossed over in order to throw out a cheap headline snippet or to make a trite video compilation. I would argue that life is better lived, and that we are better connected as humans, when the input, these data which we choose to contemplate and consume with our brains, is better. And I am convinced if your output can somehow be cast as a more global net (i.e. published), that the world would have much better data to choose from to input into our minds and souls and many may even chose to read, and possibly even write, real poetry again. Kudos to you and many thanks for sharing such masterful works as these. Reply
