Spirits in the Air
The following two poems are from a reading I did on Oct 7, 2025 for Spirits in the Air at The Good Lion. The concept is that each of the nine poets invited to read select one poem by someone else and one of their own poems — each relating in some way to drinking or spirits. The first poem I chose was "A Toast" by Stephane Mallarme, which he composed for a celebratory banquet on February 9, 1893, to celebrate La Plume magazine. The second poem is one that I wrote that was inspired by his poem and the local Pinot Noir that I love.
A Toast
Nothing, this foam, virgin verse
Depicting the chalice alone:
Far off a band of Sirens drown
Many of them head first.
We sail, O my various
Friends, I already at the stern,
You at the lavish prow that churns
The lightning’s and the winters’ flood:
A sweet intoxication urges me
Despite pitching, tossing, fearlessly
To offer this toast while standing
Solitude, reef, and starry veil
To whatever’s worthy of knowing
The white anxiety of our sail.
– Stephane Mallarme
It’s a Complicated Time
You look back
and it’s another world,
when vines crawled
and we learned to walk
sipping nectar of the gods,
the air was full of revels and madness.
Or you tell me
about sipping from a chalice
with a wafer and some hymns
a sacred instance in a middle age
I don’t know it — perhaps
it’s in our blood.
But now in this moment
I swirl in transparency
too many clones to remember them all
hearing about markets that rise and fall
yet the scent of this Pinot Noir
evades description or poetry
the perfume on my nose
that I’d rather like
to dab on my wrists today
and let a moment pause
while bramble berries and mushrooms,
the forest floor and something more,
too complex to stay inside a bottle.
Take me for a sip
and let me slip
into a time past.
​
–Krista Harris