la flûte de Pan

Did you plan pursuit, or when Syrinx turned to flee           
Did your balance tip to savagery
Faster than thought could intervene?

River reeds quake where she wills you away:

Hooves, arms, bright curling hair
Alluring yet abhorrent, is it you she fears

Or a blood pull deeper than her priestess vow

To serve the pure hunt, deer shivering
Under the white moon?

Your slicing blade hacks hollow reeds

Where wild Syrinx begs release from body                                                            
Poured as water turns to air.

Did your eye catch the motion of mist
At the water’s edge, mistaking it for wind
Drained in horror of the blade?

                                              calmato

The stillness, where you stand, the silence                        
Save of hooves crushing stumps of reeds,
The river washing as it ever did,

Did you grieve, back against a tree,

Finger small horns hidden in the curls of your hair? 
The effort to conjure pity strains,

Softened as Syrinx wasn’t forced to sing,
Could have held her sighs as you walked away,
But who would have heard the whisper

Rise from the sliced reeds you sadly gathered,

Adding breath to wind, renewing her voice
Not in conquest but in pain of guilt

Binding her to others to sustain

Her song, flutes that hold Syrinx in life
Allowing history to say you didn’t kill?

What shall we fear: desire or its lack?

What echoes in the empty reeds beyond
Lonely songs lifting through leaves?

What paints your music now:

Longing eased by crisis of extreme,
Or warning never to flee the blade of Pan,
Drawing our lesson from one who ran?                

                                                                                                       July, 2012