Eurydice

He looked back
Before I could change
Thick iniquitous mist
Into a semblance of sunlight,
At least a thin gown
For dignity to cover
Where the naked eyes
Of the damned
Still scorched my skin.
 
His hero’s song
Assumed I would meet his pace,
As proper hero’s wives all should,
But which of those have been to hell?
Thus his seizing look
Unstitched my still uncertain form,
Ashamed as it was,
Unclean.

Penelope was the seamstress – not I.

When the gate locked again,

I walked the worn path
To my stiff bed above the rocks,
Surrendered Orpheus to the Maenads,
Waiting now on no man’s song.

Every day I swim the sea of souls,

Counting miles to match the earth,
Imagining Odysseus in female form,
Swimming her way home,
Beating waves into submission
Over the wine dark sea.

                                                                                                 October, 2011

Leavings

Her flute trailed a stream of song

     We looked for long beyond

     The expectation of a final note

     That didn't come--

She walked stately off the stage

Before the song was done,

     Her rippling gown

     A floating image,

                    Then gone.

Silence lifts from sound,

          Infinitely thinned

Beyond our reach to perceive

Silver notes now hard to catch

                    As fireflies,

With ways of saying what they mean,

As if the air, at night, is precisely what it seems,

               Wetting our feet with dew--

How many stories can there be?

Too many, or too few?

The impossibility of articulating

The same phrase twice,

Precisely duplicating

Every entrance, exit,

Accidental imperfection

Argues for infinity.

Give every note its worth,

Our teachers say.

               We wish on falling stars.

 

If I've learned it correctly,

It always comes back,

A sense of standing

Close to castles in the dark,

Where moonlight settles on stones

Watered by wind in dreams;

A sense of standing

Close to water in the dark,

The air precisely what it seems--

Our echo of story and song.

August, 2011

for Susan Fries,

who taught me first

Bone Flute

Breath through old bones,
Hollow pipes reverberating
Flight and sounds of wings,
Violence of teeth and fur
Left to cast their dreams
In the dark, fragments
Stripped of referents
We speculate,
Not recreate.
Not wholly dead,

No need for faith to prove

What fell on human ear,
Element of ritual, dance, or death—
The simplicity of caves
Saying bones aren’t done
Speaking yet
Where sound, and hope of song,
Go on.

Breathe upon these slain
So many like me
Littered over valleys—
Tribes, nations, daughters
Dry bones, disassembled
Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you,
And ye shall live.
Waiting to hear what my bones
Will say

Since I wasn’t sure,

Through life—
But no need for faith to prove
Such elements of ritual, dance, or death—
Restore me to the simplicity of caves,
And I will know my bones
Aren’t done speaking yet,
Where sound, and hope of song,
Go on.

 

          November, 2011

                         For Jelle Atema, with thanks