Notes on the Poem
This is about Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Having your head around the basic plot of the play will help understand where the characters and images in the poem are coming from.
The story centers on Prospero, wizard and ousted Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda. Years ago, Prospero was usurped and exiled by his brother and has lived his life since his downfall on an island with his daughter. But when his enemies come near the island on a ship, he uses his power to generate a tempest that makes the ship crash onto the rocks of the island. Antics ensue, many of which are not relevant to the poem.
In the course of events, Miranda discovers the truth of her past. She falls in love with prince Ferdinand and they are married. Prospero is restored as duke and Miranda goes off to her new life.
And that is all the backstory you should need for this one.
Poem
Miranda, today
You walk with the king your father
His hand on your shoulder,
And it is impossible to say
Who is guiding whom.
I, Prospero—who has raised you on these rocks,
Refugee of an alien fullness,
Of another kingdom beyond the chasm, lord of all things
Lost to the storm and to the water— declare,
The fragile shelter we built was real,
But still was not enough to resist
Time’s sinuous tide.
It has brought us fate’s flotsam as from a disaster
Which marks the ending of all we have known.
I can keep you no longer.
Miranda, I know
Things will happen to you
When I am not there. I know
The times you will flee the tempest
And run into its embrace.
But do not pursue the flight from feeling,
The spirits of the air that make you sleep.
Though you press your image
In the mirror and it returns the gesture,
Do not give yourself to the mirror maze. But wait
As we waited these years for the other power,
Unwritten in my books of spells,
To find you.
I—Prospero, wizard of wave and wind, declare:
When you move beyond
The compass of my waning kingdom;
When Milan and its effervescence
Come to claim you;
When the pain years set in,
The nights of fever dreams;
When you are visited as by ghosts
Who whisper how it was and wasn't;
Remember: What is to be born,
Must be carried to term.
Walk through the midnight lanes of memory
And listen for the sound of water on rocks.
Seek all that I taught you, for which you were not ready.
The plain world is deeper than it seems and thicker.
The lives of stars are nothing to you.
This the tempest exposes.
My daughter, the end discloses everything.
Your demons are not all that follows you.
Let us pray.
Read more from Andy on Still Point (reflections on deconstruction and why people leave Christianity) and Three Things (a monthly digest of worthy resources to help people connect with culture, neighbor, and God).
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