Sappho at Sixty    by  Ray R Tyndale

Sappho was a cool woman:
a woman after my own heart,
wordsmith and woman-lover.
In my rebellious mind
she is always young and beautiful.
I, on the other hand, was young
too long ago and beauty is in the eye
of the beholder and no one
ever called me beautiful. What's more
in youth, I never had time
to be poetic nor loll about
in sunny fields
with waftily clad maidens.
So all comparison is thwarted.

Sappho was a cool woman but
here is Sappho at sixty
with all that living and loving
under her belt, a boxfile
overflowing with reviews
life threats and fan mail, a hard
edge of cynicism driving
her still prodigious outpourings.
Gone the garlands and flowing gown,
the Anne of Green Gables' hair,
bosom pals, the lolling about in meadows;
banished by creaking knees.
Less quill onto papyrus as well:
tendonitis limits the bons mots
to crisp epigrams.

Sappho was a cool woman
but at sixty
she's more within my grasp.
Spending more time than she used to
marching to keep women safe
on the streets at night; producing
that witty erudite lesbian quarterly.
Here she is holding the floor
at the forum on social services
for ageing dykes, arguing
for the education of women and girls,
for women's Olympics, for greater
community awareness of incest
and clitoridectomy and violence
against women.
Here she is in a contented
long-term relationship
with the light of her life,
a woman with short silver hair and
twinkling eyes belying her years.
Here she is writing still Sapphic,
still erotic mature poetry for
a well-established market beyond
the island; well, world-wide really.
Sappho at sixty is still cool.
Oh yes.

©Ray R Tyndale