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The Garden of Scheherazade

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Imagine

An Arabian portico

A ceiling to the side

Under which is

Furniture with pillows

It is day

Then it is night

And in another place

Deeper inside

She meets with the husband

She volunteered to take

Even though

He is a maniac

Who kills after one night

To secure fidelity

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And so you tell a story

Recalling all the things you studied

Texts

Everything told you

By your father the vizier

By his advisors

Students

The servants of the house

And when allowed to wander

(covered up)

Making stories out of comments made

Along the streets

Of a desert country

With oases

And mountains

As well

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Legends

Narratives from

Math and philosophy

The history of men

(mostly men

aware of audience)

Through the ages

Sinbad

Aladdin

Ali Baba

So many more

Nearly three years’ worth

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Though it was the first night

That mattered

And the day that followed

Keeping life

By keeping the killer

Entertained

And then the second night

Made all the difference

And the third

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While you stood

Or sat

Or walked

The garden outside

The blood-filled palace

Deciding

Crafting

Revising

Each narrative

For the night

Aiming for salvation

For another day

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coda

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I don’t know why I think of this

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It

She

Came to me yesterday

Probably because

I was thinking about story

On its own

Not so much the content

But the abstract

And the purpose

The importance

The reality

A telling makes

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Maybe not

To life and limb

Bur all the stories she got to tell

We got to hear

That were in context

So much fighting

For her life

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C L Couch

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A Thousand and One Arabian Nights is a collection framed by the telling of stories by Scheherazade, the daughter of the vizier.  She volunteered against her father’s wish, naturally enough, to marry the king as a defensive measure for the women of the realm—and because the realm was losing all its women, at least those suitable for a king to marry.  Whatever suitable means, especially given the circumstances.  And as an overarching cause because the king whose first wife cheated on him and was summarily executed made in the king an attitude of mania regarding fidelity.  And so each day he would marry a virgin and then each night have her killed.  Scheherazade, who was not only skilled in storytelling but in story content, went to the king, married him, and entertained him on the first night with a story and then, because he wanted more, on the second night and so on.  The king found good stories more enticing than slaying wives, which I guess is some kind of virtue even in one we can’t overall admire.  Finally, the king’s madness broke or something like that happened; and he thought to keep Scheherazade as his one (and lasting) wife.

Well, it’s a story within stories.  Or I should say without. But it adds an edge in the telling and our hearing.  An added edge like that of a sword, perhaps that of an executioner.

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Photo by Arsalan Rad on Unsplash

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