A Poet and a Muse
The Poet
Five Long Years
For five long years the poems grew; first they were nestled and saved upon his desk but as the poems grew each genre received its own colored folder. Next the folders began to multiply and were spread all over the rug in his nearby study. Did the poems know that they would become a cherished book to be published, but alas, after five years they lay side by side in the beautiful book of sublime; deeply rooted; comedic poetry.
Now I do take some credit as I’d repeatedly suggest that my husband publish his poetry, but he modestly would state he wasn’t certain that he was going in that direction.
Although I’ve thought that I’ve been my husband‘s muse, I think that buying a piece of art in Cape Cod this past summer truly was the springboard in designing and having his book published. The poems were worthy of the piece of art and the art became the book cover image. We serendipitously bought a sculpted painting in an antique store, and when it was brought home wrapped in wire on the back, was a label that said Cassandra. The artists name Jean Brotman Tock, who we researched, was a famed Cape Cod artist whose born in 1904 and died in 1988.
Cassandra ties in with an affinity we have with the Mythological Greek Goddess Cassandra, the speaker of truths that couldn’t be silenced easily.
Cassandra or Kassandra, also known as Alexandra, was a daughter of King Priam and of Queen Hecuba of Troy in Greek mythology. Cassandra was cursed to utter prophecies that were true but that no one believed.Wikipedia
She is a much needed figure in today’s world where truth is difficult to determine with politics and social media and people are often silenced.
This piece of art became the impetus to get the book published. The Cradle of Silence is a varied book of nature poems; poems about humanity and infinity and are often very moving. Some of the work is beautiful and some shows us the ugliness of our ways as humanity develops. There are poems of war, refugees and ordinary folk. It is a book that sprang from one man’s passion and love of the written word and of the natural world all around. My husband could have spent his time writing a clinical book based on therapy, but instead shared his heart mind and soul with the world, and I am proud to be the wife of this man even if another woman, Cassandra, was his truest muse.
