Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: Greek mythology

  • Chasing Shadows: The Cycle of Love and Loss

    Ariadne, Dido, and Clytie—

    ancestors of the tribe called Beautiful Losers.

    Their loves were alone, half-met,

    steeped in the clandestine ache of disappointment.

    Spring meets Summer.

    Summer elopes with Fall.

    Fall yearns for Winter.

    Winter chases after Spring.

    The cycle of lovers’ tales.

    Some loves are born to be forever chasing.

    Even beauty cannot possess the souls of the beloved.

    Votives of curse are lit for Hecate.

    Still, Ariadne found herself

    in Dionysus’ arms—god of wine and pleasure.

    Dido let Aeneas touch her aching love in a cave.

    Clytie burned for Helios,

    who left her for a mortal princess.

    But I am chasing the shadow of his past,

    the ghost of a lover no longer himself—

    his eyes, the blue sky—so beautiful, so sorrowful

    they puncture my heart with helpless longing.

    I write his name on papyrus,

    seal it with the candle’s tears,

    and burn it in the quiet flame,

    calling his name within.

    The doors of time close.

    Candlelight flickers in the wind of the hour.

    Wistful images of his face—young, old—

    even those I would forget, I cannot forsake.

  • Prompt 25

    Describe one habit that brings you joy.

    Writing is a magical portal for me to escape from reality, a sort of near-astral body experience Dr. Strange does so effortlessly. It is a particular alchemy of literature where thoughts become images and then come alive, flitting in the garden of senses. Or I can fly across the blue firmament chasing the Sun Chariot and riding on the Moon Chariot and glide on the first ray of sunrise.

    Although these days I haven’t written as much as I used to because of work and other matters, a desire for writing always stays as an undying ember glowing in a phosphorous blue diamond so rare and beautiful in the abyss of malaise. I don’t believe that writing is not a prerogative of elites, nor a status symbol of the perfect grammarians. As long as you can communicate your spirits and souls in words and strike the chords of readers, that makes you a good writer, and that’s a joy to see your magic working.

    Writers- I mean whoever writes, not just professional writers- possess a spirit of poetic madness or a gift of seeing spirits in every living thing in this universe, akin to a Sybil or a Sherman. Therefore, anyone possessed with a desire for writing can see things that others can’t see and, what’s more, begin to form the shapes of the unseen. For these reasons, writing to me brings me the joy of being a wonderful white witch of beauty.

  • Prompt 19

    If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

    I am one of those sentimental folks who tend to make a parallel with themselves to the characters of a story in a book or film due to an uncanny spiritual ability to channel into the psyche of another. Methinks this could be something of an ancient Greek or Roman Sybil, who foretold the prophecies at holy places in ecstatic mania. Accordingly, my choice of avatars is of independent, strong-willed, but mistaken women whom people could not fail to notice out of the melee: Cassandra and Ariadne.

    Cassandra, the daughter of the last king of Troy Priam and his wife Hecuba, was a priestess of the god Apollo, who bestowed the gift of prophecy on her. However, when she refused the god’s amorous advance, the cruel god fated her not to be believed in her predictions. So when Cassandra warned her people of the fall of Troy, they didn’t deign to acknowledge her but to scorn her for such hokum. Alas, poor Cassandra! I knew him, Ariadne, for your beautiful deed and heart was betrayed by Theseus, whom you helped kill Minotaur and save the Athenian youths from the labyrinth! Theseus abandoned his beautiful savior on the island of the Naxos and sailed on to Athens. Why did he forsake her? It’s because the goddess Athena told him that Ariadne would be nothing but a nuisance in his way of constructing her namesake city-state! Before being the sacred and immortal goddess, Athena was also a woman, but how could she force Theseus to bloodlessly forsake the poor Ariadne, whose benevolence saved the youths of Athens?

    Both Cassandra and Ariadne’s benevolence and strong will were not appreciated by those whom they helped or tried to help. What a tragedy it was! Likewise, my heartfelt intention and humanity meet with cold shoulders or the least respect from the people I help and have helped. Sometimes I wonder if nature bestowed beauty on me, would they be unkind or appreciate who I am? Then I think of Cassandra and Ariadne and cannot help but feel for what they had been through.

  • Hounds of Night

    The curtain of the night has drawn. Selene has started her nocturnal promenade with a moon mirror carried on her celestial chariot across the starry highway. Then the earth begins to bellow with great silent roars, trees to dance with leaves rustling in the wind as the chariot is racing, owls to call with their wings flapping, and the hounds howl from the end of the horizon in the glimmering light of the distant stars like lamps flickering in the desolate wilderness amid the haunting sound of Pan’s flute yonder. It’s Hecate’s Time, the Wandering Goddess of Night, appearing from the crossroads with her faithful hounds, heralding the staging of their divine mistress.

    Hecate has often been associated with all things witchery, magic, and death, not in the least due to modern-day Wicca practice identified heavily with the Greek goddess, but there’s more to her. She is a protector of the wrongfully accused, a goddess of retribution against injustice and impurity, and an advocate for underdogs. Perhaps, that’s why her animal is a dog, not a cat, which betrays a common association of the latter with someone like her. (In fact, Artemis is the only goddess whose animals are a cat because she was once transformed into it when chased by a besotted man.) Her hounds all have names: Kynegetis (Leader of Dogs from the Orphic Hymn), Kyneolygmate (Howling like a dog), Kynokephalos (Dog-headed), Kyon Melaina (Black Dog), Philoskylax (Lover of Dogs), Skylakitin (Lady of the Dogs). Of all the hounds, Kyon Melnia, aka Black Dog, used to be the wife of the last Trojan King Priam named Hekabe, who threw herself into the sea after the collapse of Troy by the Greeks. Hecate took pity on the queen and transformed her into a great black dog that became her familiar. What a manifestation of divine mercy it was.


    It is said that dogs and cats see the spirits of the dead, especially at night. If you have heard a dog howling, another howl, then another, and so forth, as if all of them sing in a canine polyphonic coda. When Hecate’s hounds howl, mortal dogs respond to their divine canine entity as the goddess and her entourage pass by. The hounds also bring victuals offered to Hecate to their mistress at a cemetery where she partakes her daily victuals. So if you think it’s just an ancient myth, listen carefully when your dog or any dog within your earshot howls. It’s either it sees a spirit or Hecate and her nine hounds. For me, well, I have a tabby cat named Toro, and he sees it and them but won’t participate in the chorus because he has her mistress at home.

  • My labyrinth

    The labyrinth I’m in
    The paths after paths
    Cycle in epicycle repeats
    Without Ariadne’s thread
    In the endless pursuit
    Of the uncertain exit
    That the maze hides
    By stalking me with it
    From day one, flat out
    Till I reckon it’s my plight
    My creation, mine only

  • Polaris

    Remember, when you see the North Star
    On a high cold night drifting away at sea,
    Your destiny isn’t doomed altogether
    Even the spell on your life fades away;
    Hope leads the path most brilliantly,
    Humor cheers a sailing most pleasingly,
    And tomorrow is always a new adventure;
    No fortune’s malice can cover the Polaris
    Nor can sorrow dim the diamond light
    With heart even for the fate unkind ever.