Alone with the Goddess

By Linda Gregg b. 1942 Linda Gregg

The young men ride their horses fast

on the wet sand of Parangtritis.

Back and forth, with the water sliding

up to them and away.

This is the sea where the goddess lives,

angry, her lover taken away.

Don’t wear red, don’t wear green here,

the people say. Do not swim in the sea.

Give her an offering.

I give a coconut to protect

the man I love. The water pushes it back.

I wade out and throw it farther.

“The goddess does not accept your gift,”

an old woman says.

I say perhaps she likes me

and we are playing a game.

The old woman is silent,

the horses wear blinders of cloth,

the young men exalt in their bodies,

not seeing right or left, pretending

to be brave. Sliding on and off

their beautiful horses

on the wet beach at Parangtritis.

“Alone with the Goddess” by Linda Gregg. Copyright 2008 by Linda Gregg. Reprinted from All of It Singing with permission from Graywolf Press. www.graywolfpress.org

Source: All of It Singing (Graywolf Press, 2008)

Biography

Born in New York, poet Linda Gregg was raised in Marin County, California. She received both a BA and an MA from San Francisco State University. Gregg has published several collections of poetry, including Too Bright to See (1981); Alma (1985); Things and Flesh (1999), finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry; and All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems, a Los Angeles Times Favorite Book of 2008 and winner of the . . .

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