Tigers
after the Korean myth Bari Degi
1. The Queen So Stunned
Where do tigers sleep? she thought
while praying in the dark
She prayed so hard
her lips had long gone automatic
She prayed so hard
even indifferent spirits
stirred in their den in the stars she prayed
so hard
the brass tongues in her skull chimed
so hard her knees polished the pine floor
& sweat bled through her dress
Can you first smell the tiger? You can’t
help these thoughts
while listening for spirit
She prayed so hard her palms calloused
as farmer’s & her heart charred
but after 100 nights
she & the king shared the same dream
of the big dipper
waterfalling
light into their breast
so she forgot
prayer is a hollowing
for fate
She prayed so hard that when still this seventh baby
was born a girl
the queen so stunned
to be abandoned by the gods
agreed to leave it in the mountains
in its brother’s useless silk
on which she scrawled
in royal blood
throwaway
바리
2. Wild Bound Till Fifteen
In darkness my mother’s
yellow eyes spotlight
Every muscle listens for how
the owl heralds & the boughs pine
My hunger rustles & those moons
set to meet mine, purr a lullaby till I latch
a teat in her whitest fur. I’m cream warm
bare skinned & sated it’s like
no harm could ever come
She is my god
& my god delicious
Licked twice by my mother’s tongue
her copper breath soothes me
When I dream I wake
& every eye in the rockface blinks in sympathy
The mountain lives
I pick up chants by the echoing den
alphabets in constellations
every plant suggests its spirit
every wind a parable
By the new year I’m reared
in the art of stillness
as the cubs learn patience by the hunt
mimicking their matriarch
The forest’s feral almanac
opens its hard spine &
by & by I’m schooled
& refined through survival
Scrying veins in riverstone
saving seed to spring scatter
etching reflections in turtle bone
wild bound till fifteen
& freshly bled
a woman
written and illustrated by ©Meesha Goldberg
Meesha Goldberg is a Korean American artist and poet living in Charlottesville, VA. Her experiences growing food, serving as an activist, and journeying to sacred places have made her a powerful advocate for the Earth. Goldberg has exhibited her work in solo shows around the United States, with her debut poetry chapbook “The Seed is Waiting in the Dark” forthcoming in 2024 through Finishing Line Press. Her art crosses the boundaries of genre to both experience and express transformational repair. Performance, ritual, painting, film, and poetry merge in durational, place-based works and gallery installations that insist upon the re-enchantment of the world.
The Seed Is Waiting in the Dark by Meesha Goldberg
This title will be released on January 19, 2024
The Seed is Waiting in the Dark confronts the realities of ecological catastrophe and diasporic displacement with the lyric intensity of a life lived reckoning with questions of collective survival. Included within this debut collection are five of Goldberg’s paintings, which poignantly illustrate these feral, visionary poems. Full of grief, grace, and lessons from the land, The Seed is Waiting in the Dark conjures ancestral instincts to claim belonging within the cycles of natural life.
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