A new sun and a new moon visit on Wednesday
Of a new leap year with another day in February
Of the 2020th year of A.D in the Gregorian diary,
Marking Chapter 20 of the 3rd-millennium page,
Opening the 1st door of the second decade,
And chiming 20 bells of the 21st century.
Queen of Faeries, give me your glamour spells,
And take me in your Chariot of Wonder,
To join the ride on the crest of waves
And the flight to the end of the Equator.
Author’s Note: We all yearn for a haven, a niche, or a Shangri-La amid wrestling with the existential challenges that life presents to us. To dismiss such a yearning as a peevish repertory of a wastrel or an incompetent is a churlish disregard of the humanity and a supercilious judgment of individuality. William Butler Yeats saw the heart of the weary, and this is my tribute to his vision of the imagination in which I want to willingly waste my time.
The soul of man has his own chariot
With a driver and two winged horses:
The one eager for honorable praises;
The other intent on becoming corrupt
That only flogging and bawling can quell.
With the driver’s free rein on the mares,
The noble horse goes AWOL,
The ignoble heads dominance,
The chariot loses control,
All fall from the fantastic race
To the parched land of ignorance,
Then begins the rebirth of the race
Again, and again forever and ever.
Author’s Note: I remember reading about Plato’s Chariot Allegory that illustrates our journey to the end of enlightenment with its vividly dynamic images of the aerial chariot race too compelling to reserve for a silent appreciation in my mind’s reservoir. I wonder what my chariot race has been like thus far…
Library of the Bard is in a fairy hide beneath the visiting moon
Beyond an evanescent slice of the seacoast between tides in rhythm,
Down below the deepening foliage between field and forest,
High above the sloping land between plain and mountain yonder
Where Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits are librarians of wonder
Among the unknown writs of mortals of the universe
Beyond the boundary of time and space and race,
Keep a single book of the Bard with the imprimatur
Of literary workaday Johannes Factotum
On the seventh floor of the Library of Babel
Girding the constellation of stars studded over
Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb.
Author’s Note: I listened to an excellent podcast interview with Stuart Kells, author of Shakespeare’s library, and agreed with him about a possibility that a single book authored by William Shakespeare will someday materialize from an unknown arcane volume of various writings of others in an unexpected place. Things can happen. Hence this poem from my mind’s view on Shakespeare’s Library.
A monk to be welled up alive
After breaking his sacred vows
Bet his life on a magnum opus
In one night with all the knowledge
Deep and wide of heaven and earth
to appease the communal fury
in the glory of the holy community
Forever famed in an earthly shrine.
So, the monk made a special prayer
To Lucifer, Prince of Darkness fallen
From heaven in exchange for his soul
For helping him complete the opus.
The Devil answered the prayer thus
And possessed the monk with feats
of supernatural erudition and swiftness.
The monk then paid his dues in twofold:
The portrait of his satanic master in the opus
And the offering of his life to Lord of Hell
In the likeness of the life of one Dr. Faustus
According to the gospel of Marlowe.
Thereby lies the Codex Gigas immortal
Author’s Note: This poem is based on my reading of an article about “The Devil’s Bible” that survived the infernal fire in a Swedish castle. It’s arguably the largest medieval manuscript in the world originated in 13th century Bohemia. The scribe who penned this formidable book is said to have made a Faustian pact with the devil for completion thereof in just one day. What’s more, the book escaped the inferno by being defenestrated outside the window despite its being of 8.7 inches thick and 75 kilograms (approximately 165 pounds). The story is so remarkable that it has been registered in my mind’s book since I read it. The Devil’s Bible is now preserved at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.
The stars in the Milky Way
Bright in the cold night sky
Twinkle in her diamond eyes
Dwell in her garden of senses
To unravel the universal mystery.
Author’s Note: Last night’s sky was studded with beautiful stars imbuing me with a new kind of hope and comfort that life is not such a formidable juggernaut to deal with. The beauty of nature did me good indeed. This is my mind’s imprint of the beauty.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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