The Great Myrellenos - An Ode to the Mother Muse

It has been a difficult month, having lost several friends from a variety of illnesses-- and I was ill myself for the last two weeks. Books are moving, the Celtic encyclopaedia I helped to edit will be out presently, but in the meantime, someone has a birthday to commemorate. The Great Myrellenos, the Queen of the Fey of Mlys, might be a made up entity in Frewyn, but she is based on a real person, the Mother Muse, a great lady whom I have always seen as a faerie queen, a woman who edited my artistic soul and spurred me on to commit the gravest of societal sins and become an authoress. Danaco's ship is named after her, and though this lyrical poem does not appear in the book, it is one the Mother Muse would have recited.

The Great Myrellenos

 

How, now, has it come to this?

What fallen stars have led you here?

We meet again, but at what cost?

My expiry date would get you here

I am lain tar, your face the Muse

I am not so delirious as I appear

They cannot understand who we are

But I know you must-- she said, I do

 

You speak the language of the Fey

The Great Myrellenos is come at last

In all her state, to see me off

Go, Spirit of the Mother, she said

You can tell me your name

But I knew it was Myra

 

Mistress of Ivory, nine feet long

Colours blooming and wings subdued

You belong to the seaside realm

Hibiscus blushing in the brume

Her favourite season is winter, she said

But that is where my power leads

You whisper your treatise in Feyword

Unimpeded by their disease

 

You brought brave Quarantina along

Mistress of the Maiden head

You need not have troubled so much

I will not remember when I am dead

I cannot know where I will go

Once I move on from this place

Nor recall what I once was

But what is now, I owe to that face

 

You speak the language of the Fey

The Great Myrellenos is come at last

In all her state, to see me off

Go, Spirit of the Mother, I said

They told me your name

But you knew it was Myra

 

The worst of it all is Time, I said

The cherished moment, the fleeting Now

And just like you, I am going to die

Without commanding the wretched how

She has our soul, this Crossroads Crone

My heart on her lips, her speech on my tongue

Indoctrination was deep, I said

Your voice had made my ears a rogue

 

Being the Motherless Child, I said

Your halo outshone mine from afar

Her faeriesong, the freedom call

Waking me from my Father’s thumb

I entered her meadow with fresh footfalls

But Scarlet sits still, as we all must now

Trapped by media glass-blown screens

Vanity baits our shallow machines

 

She spoke then the language of the Fey

The Great Myrellenos is come and gone

In all my state, to see us off

Go, Spirit of the Mother, they said

I told her my name

But I knew she was Myra

 

We did not know each other, I said

But we have both been bosom friends

Without pressing her foot to my toes

Our keys and notes touching instead

And therein lies the Breath of Life

The Gift of Flight is yours, she said

She took my hand and felt my spark

Her Feyword spell falling on my head

 

The beach where we met is silent now

The frogs sing songs where you once played

Books stacks claim the bleacher chair

Where music reached and words once stayed

That arena is where the Memory lives

These Two Souls communing there

She said, Would you give me your space

I said, I would not mind you here

 

She speaks the language of the Fey

The Great Myrellenos is come and gone

In all my state, to see her off

Go, Spirit of the Mother, you said

She told me her name

But we knew it was Myra