by Jane Yolen
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Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
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For the Baba Yaga women in my life—Heidi Stemple, Elizabeth Harding, Malerie Yolen Cohen, Mira Bartok, Betsy Pucci Stemple, Joanne Lee Stemple—and in memory of the greatest Baba Yaga of all, Marilyn Marlow. Tough love personified.
Foreword
Here’s what you need to know about Baba Yaga, the great, iconic, Russian fairy tale witch. She lives in a house in the wood that walks about on chicken feet. She calls to it: “Turn about, little house, turn to me,” and it rotates until its front door is right before her. She flies around in the sky in a human-sized mortar (the kind used for grinding herbs), which she steers with a pestle. She has an iron nose and iron teeth. Smart and bold little girls like Vasilisa work for her and are rewarded, but Baba Yaga devours naughty boys. Some stories say she has a fence around her house made of the bones of the children she has eaten. But that fence also migrated in storyland to the house of the Hansel and Gretel witch, so I have put it there instead.
Baba Yaga represents the ageless life force. She’s a magical crone, once both feared and worshipped by Russian peasants. In fact, these days around the world, she is better known than any other Russian folk tale character, more popular than Vasilisa, Kostchai the Deathless, or Firebird. She’s appeared in novels, graphic novels, movies, and TV series. Added to that, Baba Yaga is both my hero and the nightmare figure in my dreams. I have taken all the characters, added a modern family, and the rest is a novel in verse that mixes Russia folklore and American realism.
—Jane Yolen
PS: In July 2013, I discovered the very strange website Once Upon a Blog … Fairy Tale News (http://fairytalenewsblog.blogspot.co.uk), which featured an ongoing set of weekly posts voiced by Baba Yaga as a Lonely Hearts columnist. Originally posted on The Hairpin, “Ask Baba Yaga” has since been collected and published as Ask Baba Yaga: Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles by Taisia Kitaiskaia (Andrew McMeel, 2017). Ask Baba Yaga is hilarious and provocative, and these poems would not exist without her posts.
You Think You Know This Story
You think you know this story.
You do not.
You think it’s about a princess who runs
from a wicked king.
It is not.
You think it is about a charming prince
who rescues, relieves, releases
a maiden from her tower.
It is not.
Surely there must be pumpkin, huntsman,
coach, some dwarves, a troll,
riding hood, ring, wand.
There is not.
Stories retold are stories remade.
A sorrowing girl in a house.
An old witch with iron fillings.
A hut in the wood,
in the meadow, in the hood.
This is a tale
both old and new,
borrowed, narrowed,
broadened, deepened.
You think you know this story.
You do not.
CHAPTER ONE
The Last Fight
Papa Says, Mama Says
It is not a conversation,
but serial monologues,
each one waiting
for that breath space
to say his own,
her own
piece.
Peace.
There is no peace
in this house,
only strips of paper,
tatters of cloth,
slivers of glass,
slit lips and tongues.
I pick up the shards
and put me to bed
every night.
Wake up in pieces
every day
because of what
Mama says,
Papa says.
I don’t say.
Argument
At first no one screams,
trading whispered accusations.
Papa means, Mama means.
At first no one listens,
words like filth hang between us,
tears glisten.
At first no one forgets,
anger anchored way too deep
in an ocean of regrets.
At first no one thinks it matters,
Papa said. Mama said.
Night shatters.
At first no one denies
the sliver of surprise
beneath each glossy nail.
At first.
The Word That Shatters Trust
Papa does not let us swear.
Words, he says, bind the world,
otherwise we shatter the trust
God gave us in this life.
Good words, logos he calls it,
God’s words in the beginning.
It’s why he’s so careful with them,
doling them out like a miser
on Christmas morning.
But bad words, he calls bogus,
confusing anger with sin.
Sometimes a bad word
is punctuation to a bad day,
makes us laugh, gives us courage,
lifts the heart.
Swearing can be held too tight in the heart,
Speaking it aloud, an artifact, an art.
The Goodest Word, The God-est Word
Has Papa ever said love without warning?
Has he ever said love with warming?
Has he ever said love without worry?
Has he only said love in a weary way?
Has he ever spoken,
Has he ever really said the word?
Love.
Soap in the Mouth
I simply say the bathroom word,
the one written on school walls.
The common one in the mouths
of angry teachers when chalk breaks.
And Papa calls me filth,
takes the Dove soap,
jams it in my mouth
before I can apologize, turn away.
There’s no anger in what he does,
only deadly purpose.
He says words have power.
The power to make you feel dirty
even while getting clean.
Angels are always clean.
Through the bubbles I ask:
What about feather mites?
This time I remember to duck.
The Taste That Lingers
Soap on the tongue lingers.
You cannot spit it out,
cannot swallow it down.
It is as if that word still
tingles in my mouth, a reminder
of my father’s distaste.
I think of Nathaniel
in my kindergarten class,
t
he only Jew I’ve ever known.
He told us how he learned
to read Hebrew prayers
by licking each letter.
They were strange and difficult,
smeared with honey
on the rabbi’s book.
Words shouldn’t be dirty or clean
but definitely sweet,
on the tongue, in the mind.
Nathaniel taught me that
before I knew the alphabet.
Papa would have been horrified:
at the letters,
at the honey,
at the Jew.
Behind A Closed Door
No words can unlock the door,
can find the key to my cage.
I swing my head like an old elephant
well used to captivity. I pace the floor,
count the steps between bedroom walls.
In mourning, I wait for morning.
Waiting is a coffin that confines me,
defines me.
I have to find the courage.
I have to find
the key.
Fence of Bones
Mama unlocks the door after Papa leaves,
the accusations between us
like a fence made of bones.
Long leg bones the railings,
arm bones the gate,
eye socket the lock,
middle finger bone the key.
We sit at the table,
coffee growing cold.
My mother grows old,
her face skull-like.
I watch her fast-forward
into a bleaker future.
Standing, I fling the coffee cup,
call her witch,
wish I could believe
in the magic of escape.
I will be well punished for that word as well.
The Porch Tells Me to Go
I sit in the porch rocker
where once I was a child.
The porch tells me to go.
The steps tell me to get away.
The driveway tells me to flee.
The old tree tells me to leave.
The swing hung on a limb,
where once I could almost touch the sky,
Papa’s hands on my back, pushing,
before he was pushed into preaching,
that swing says nothing.
A car rushes down the street,
as I should,
singing a tireless song.
The rocker tells me to stay,
its voice a comfort.
But the road beckons,
the highway calls,
the day seduces.
Another word I’m not allowed to speak
Unless it’s to condemn.
If I’d Made a Plan
If I’d made a plan
it wouldn’t be this one.
If I’d packed a bag,
it wouldn’t be my backpack.
If I’d left a letter,
I couldn’t have written a word.
See, it all begins and ends
with that.
A word.
But which word:
love,
regret,
goodbye?
CHAPTER TWO
The Runaway
Never Look Back
Never look back at the porch,
the house, the bedroom,
the secrets.
Look ahead.
Never look back at the kitchen,
the soap, the lock, the key,
the silence.
Look ahead.
Whatever I’m wearing, I wear.
Whatever’s in my pockets, I have.
Whatever I think I know, I know.
Whatever I forget is gone.
Goodbyes are not an option.
Only so-longs.
All Paths Lead Here
I run out of the house,
across the road,
forget to look both ways,
hear the door slam behind me.
No one follows to beg me to come home.
No one sends me a letter.
No one tracks my email.
No one calls 9-1-1.
All paths lead here,
the Baba tells me later.
No paths lead out.
The Hardest Part
The hardest part is not looking back.
The hardest part is looking ahead.
The hardest part is not turning the corner.
The hardest part is crossing the street.
The hardest part is not passing the school.
The hardest part is walking out of town.
The hardest part is not thumbing a ride.
The hardest part is getting in the car.
The hardest part is not getting out of the car.
The hardest part is going in the 7-Eleven.
The hardest part is not stealing the chocolate bar.
The hardest part is walking out the door.
The hardest part is not eating the chocolate.
The hardest part is …
There is no easy part.
Phoning a Friend
With almost the last charge
of my cell phone battery
I phone a friend.
She says come over,
have dinner,
stay the night.
I who have never
come over, had dinner,
stayed the night
before.
When I get there,
my mother’s battered car
idles in their driveway.
I don’t go in.
Only then do I remember—
I have no friends.
What Happens Next
There’s only
forward,
outward,
onward.
There’s only
inward,
downward
afterward.
There’s only away.
A Long Walk to Nowhere
Your back wears out before your feet do.
Your shins complain before your stomach.
It’s no longer easy to live on candy bars
stolen from the corner store, though the map’s good.
Rain takes a long time to dry on your clothes.
Sleeping on the ground is harder than you think.
Learning to pee in the woods, in the scrub,
means unlearning years of potty training.
Hunger is a bad companion and a worse friend.
Somewhere becomes a nightmare.
I knock on no doors, make no phone calls.
Nowhere becomes my destination.
You can find it on the blank spaces
of any free map in any old store.
Just turn a corner of your mind,
and it’s there.
Sleeping Rough
First night I lie on a picnic table
looking up at the stars.
All I can pick out are Orion and the Dipper.
Maybe I can borrow a library book.
Learn the names of galaxies, constellations.
Find out about the moon and tides.
Remember then I have no library card with me.
I have no library to go to.
I turn angrily, fall off the table.
See stars.
Washing Away the Filth
It’s too cold to wash in the river.
Besides, I’ve left all that soap behind.
I think of it suddenly, the Dove resting
in its plastic nest, wondering
when Noah will send it forth.
My mind wanders over the endless sea
of my leaving. There is an ocean
between me and the safety of some Ararat.
Who knows what toothy creatures
hunt in the dark waves.
I’m filthy now just as Papa always said
There’s no sea, no ocean, no rainfall,
that can ever wash these stains away.
Stain—almost an anagram for Satan,
one small letter difference.
Things always come back
to the word.
This Is Not a Fairy Tale
Expect no princes.
Expect no magic rings.
Expect no glass slippers.
Expect no fairy godmothers.
Expect no singing dwarfs.
Expect no talking dragons.
Expect only
seven deadlies delivered:
exhaustion,
boredom,
regret,
hunger,
anger,
danger,
death.
All part of God’s taketh away.
The Last Road
I turn off the highway onto an A road,
cross to a B road, sidestep onto a thin blue line,
numberless but still paved.
Cars brush by me, one so close, my map
flies into the air on its own wings,
a fat, lazy pigeon, not a dove.
When I find the map again,
along the shoulder of the road,
the page I’m on is crossed with tire tracks.
Finding a space in a hedgerow, I plow on through.
My options narrow to this: A simple path
into a wood of ghostly white trees.
Above me a murder of crows discuss dinner.
A wind puzzles through the birches.
Like the hero in any good tale, I boldly walk in.
CHAPTER THREE
Into the Woods
Counting Stones
This is the abacus of my journey.
A stone for the days I was on the road: 7.
A stone for the nights I slept rough: 6.
A stone for the days I saw no one to talk to: 5.
A stone for the days I had nothing to eat: 4.
A stone for the days I longed to go home: 3.
A stone for the days I tried to return: 2.
A stone for the doors I walked out of: 1.
A heavy heart with all those stones
weighing me down.
A February of them.
I leave the abacus in the woods.