In The Voice Of  Émilie  Du Chatelet (1706-1749) 


She was a great man whose only fault was being a woman. 
                                                                          Voltaire 
I cannot calculate why the stars 
governed my birth with more genius 
than graceful movement of hand or foot. 

I had a bold imagination 
lodged in a girl's body grown 
awkwardly tall and thin, a sunflower towering 
over the garden's petite blossoms.

Father shook his head and hired 
tutors to perfect my feminine skills, 
hoping I would grow more poised, become 
charmingly coy. 

My hands played the spinet, accompanied
by candles and fresh-cut flowers. My passion 
took science for a  lover 
unbuttoning the galaxy's shirt 
and watching planets spill 
into my lap -- each one round and radiant

as it spun on its axis of spatial equations
that drew light, infused me 
with  dreams of  Newton. His presence 
haunted my sleep along with a falling moon. 
His theories filled my senses -- like an aromatic blend 

of snuff or sandalwood. And to that study 
I gave sheer devotion, undisclosed
the spellbound girl -- not even my husband glimpsed
when I pleased him with the unlacing
of silk brocade, moonlight bleaching  my breasts

that had grown quite full  from nursing
a son. A small being  I feared
could threaten my artistry or health.

Years later, my anxiety proved true
when I died  six days after giving birth 
to another child. This time a daughter, my sweet
enfant who cried for milk   
or love  as I passed into a garden 
far beyond her nursery window. 

Marble sea nymphs 
poured water from a fountain 
while I knelt  surrounded by trees, lost 
under  bridal-white skirts of glare. 

Someone Immortal 
had asked for my hand -- 
and glancing back, I realized 

Émilie  as a name 
might always walk in the shadow of Emile 
but as a woman  she walked 
on the horizon of ideas. Her Milky Way
a bridge between spirit and matter, 
the head and heart.

In an age when society recognized men as the  precise and radical thinkers who would bring discovery to the Age of Enlightenment,  Émilie du Chatelet   defied the boundaries of  her gender and class by pursuing her love of  science  While translating and expounding on the theories of Isaac Newton, she still found herself immersed in the feminine side of her nature, cultivating her maternal instincts and a sensitivity for the aesthetic things in life  She once remarked, “let us decide on the route that we wish to take to pass our life, and attempt to sow that route with flowers.”

Woman Primordial

There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air, 
matter, dream and thought.
                                                 Linda Hogan

Among the ruins of a hillside mine,  turquoise
still lingering in its vein, they found a woman's skull, 
ancient in age,  bronzed in tone. Her facial bones
were  angular and her teeth intact -- 
ground smooth from chewing on root and bark,
mincing  nut, seed and grain.

She clenched the earth's yield,
gifts of a wild garden  -- and for that, 
her tongue uttered praise to the elemental gods. 
Her mouth haunted by the aftertaste 
of  their grass and soil, air and water. Her pristine head 
now  becomes our lamp
lit by awe  and burning off shadows
 of the unknown.

We touch her, our fingers probing 
the polished  relic for clues. 
A song of how sparingly
we lived so long ago
when we wore the land blessed
as fertile cloth, belted with stars
and pinned together with rain. The blue
silhouette of mountains sleeping
in the distance.

Wendy Howe is an English teacher who lives in southern California. She often draws inspiration for her poetry from visual art, ancient cultures/myths, history and personal experience.  Her work has been featured in numerous journals both on-line and in- print ranging from speculative fiction to historic profiles. Most recently her work has appeared in The Copperfield Review, Carmina Magazine, The Poetry Salzburg Review,  Sun Dial Magazine and Eye To the Telescope. Currently, she’s working on her first collection of poems and hopes to complete it by next summer.