Poem: "A Quiet Fame"
This poem relates to one of my own personal patrons, Hypatia of Alexandria. It has been sponsored by kestrels_nest.
A Quiet Fame
There are not so many
who know the name
of Hypatia of Alexandria.
She is a scholar's hidden hera,
a tomboy's twirling muse,
a misogynist's nameless nightmare.
She was a librarian, a teacher,
a mathematician, an astronomer --
a woman who dared to scale the walls
of the ivory tower defended by men.
It is no wonder
that she was so feared,
that she was so martyred.
It has done them no good whatsoever,
try though they might to tread on her hem;
it has not halted her progress in the slightest
nor left her wanting for protégées.
Hers is a quiet fame,
no louder than
a whisper in the stacks.
She is not the kind of hera
who dances in the streets
with her enemy's head on a stick.
Hers is the sly knife of ideas
slipped between the ribs of ignorance.
Hers is the murmur in a girl's ear,
Come here and learn, little sister.
Math is not so hard as the boys say.
Come here and look, little sister.
You too can seek for the stars.
They follow her still, their wee bare feet
pressing signs into the dust of the hosts of heaven.