The Mistress Recognized by Law (Concubine)

Lyrics

[Intro]

In the quiet of this chamber, I speak to you, old hairpin of jade,
carved in Chang'an, 719 to 756, cool against my fingers.
You who pinned the hair of Yang Yuhuan, favored one.

[Verse 1]
You rested in her black coils, Yang Guifei,
while Emperor Xuanzong whispered in the palace at evening,
50 degrees Fahrenheit, jasmine incense curling.
Lychees arrived on relay horses, 600 miles from the south,
just for her craving, her laughter echoing off silk screens.
But the rebellion came, An Lushan in 755,
and they strangled her at Mawei Slope, July 15, 756.
You fell to the floor, forgotten in the chaos.

[Chorus]
Concubine, mistress by law,
recognized in the scrolls, the codes, the hymns.
I hold you now, jade cold as a Tang autumn,
and see the women you touched—
Enheduanna in Ur, circa 2285 BCE,
Eliza R. Snow in Nauvoo, 1844.
Your green light binds them, unspoken bonds.

[Verse 2]
Before you, in Mesopotamia, Enheduanna,
high priestess, perhaps more, under Sargon's reign.
In the ziggurat at dawn, 100 degrees, sesame oil smoke thick,
she inscribed hymns on clay with a stylus:
"I, the brilliant one of the temple."
Her words on cuneiform, baked in Ur's heat,
laws from Hammurabi, 1754 BCE, granting rights to such as her—
inheritance for children born outside the first wife's shadow.

[Bridge]

And later, Eliza, in the Illinois cabin, winter 20 degrees below,
quill scratching paper by stove light, 1845.
Plural wife to Joseph Smith, then Brigham Young,
her poem: "Truth eternal tells me I’ve a mother there."
In Nauvoo, log walls rough, cornmeal mush steaming,
she led the Relief Society, her voice a quiet force.
Died 1887, at 83, her hymnbook bound in leather.

[Verse 3]
Hairpin, you who survived the palace fall,
did you feel the weight of these lives?
Yang's silk fan waving in humid summers,
Enheduanna's barley bread at rituals,
Eliza's wool shawl against the cold.
Laws recognized them—Babylonian stele, Tang annals, Mormon records—
but gaps remain, unnamed women lost,
their stories dust in the archives.

[Chorus]
Concubine, mistress by law,
recognized in the scrolls, the codes, the hymns.
I hold you now, jade cold as a Tang autumn,
and see the women you touched—
Enheduanna in Ur, circa 2285 BCE,
Eliza R. Snow in Nauvoo, 1844.
Your green light binds them, unspoken bonds.

[Outro]

Rest here, old jade, in my palm.
The emperor's gift, the priestess's echo, the poet's verse.
You pin the history, intimate and grave.